Sunday, May 09, 2004
Crime linked to Wal-Mart keeps small-town cops busy
Alexandria Sage THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARRISVILLE -- Officer Nate Thompson remembers when green fields and an egg farm stood here on the site of the 212,000-square-foot Wal-Mart.
Before the 24-hour Supercenter opened, the city of approximately 4,000 residents retired to their homes after dark, with two solitary bars providing the town's only late-night distractions.
"We're just kind of a boring little city, you know," said Thompson, 31.
But boring is a thing of the past in Harrisville -- at least for the Harrisville Police Department. Since Wal-Mart opened in early 2001, calls to the department have jumped by a third. The number of officers has increased from four to six. The store's parking lot, where more than half the city's DUIs originate, is now patrolled overnight.
"Our DUIs skyrocketed," said Thompson, cruising the parking lot one recent Friday night. "It just went through the roof."
As the world's largest retailer puts its stamp on rural communities, some towns are discovering that while the 24-hour big-box store may bring financial benefits, they go hand-in-hand with an unintended downside: increased burdens on law enforcement.
"You just about name it," said Clinton Police Chief Bill Chilson. "Domestic violence, shoplifting, fraud scams, we've had DUI, traffic accidents, medical situations -- we haven't had any shootings yet."
Chilson estimated that the population of his city of 18,000 nearly doubles in size each day because of his city's Supercenter, one of 19 Wal-Mart discount store-supermarket hybrids in Utah and nearly 1,400 around the country. Warned of what to expect by similar towns with 24-hour Wal-Marts, he recalled one court judge asking him, "Have you been Wal-Mart-ized yet?"
In some towns across the country, law enforcement agencies have even opened substations in their local Wal-Marts to better respond to the increased activity.
Wal-Mart says it works closely with law enforcement on crime-prevention measures, including staff training and community outreach. Each store has cameras and undercover security guards, many of them former law enforcement officers.
"Before we build a store, we begin a conversation with local law enforcement and we begin building a relationship with them," said Sharon Weber, a spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer.
Overwhelmingly, police chiefs defended Wal-Mart as an asset to the community and helpful to law enforcement, providing full access and information for investigations and grants to fund police projects, to say nothing of the tax benefits the store brings the community.
"Thank goodness for Wal-Mart, that's all I can say," said Harrisville Mayor Fred Oates. "Any mayor in the United States who had the opportunity would be glad to have a Wal-Mart."
Harrisville earns about $60,000 monthly in sales taxes from Wal-Mart, Oates estimated, and that figure will jump 40 percent after an access road to the store is paid for out of sales tax revenue this year.
Still, when the retail powerhouse is built in a small rural community, the effect on the local police department can be devastating.
"It is at times overwhelming," said Chief John Slauch of the West Sadsbury Township Police Department in rural Pennsylvania .
And municipal taxes don't cover the extra costs incurred by the eight-officer police force, he said.
"I really don't think Wal-Mart is concerned with what happens on the local level; they're concerned with how much money they're making," he said, adding, "They're not looking at the burden they're creating."
A criminal magnet
Back in Harrisville, more than 100 cars are still parked in the vast Wal-Mart parking lot well past midnight. Drug users on methamphetamine tend to gravitate to this store in the wee hours of the night.
"We look at Wal-Mart as the first line of defense in terms of crime coming into the city," said Officer Thompson, sitting in his black Camaro patrol car.
Thompson looks for the paranoia and uncontrolled body movements that betrays "tweakers," addicts high on meth. Drug DUIs outnumber those involving alcohol three to one in Harrisville, and most originate in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
"No one wants to pay more money -- including tweakers," he said, laughing.
In all its stores, Wal-Mart has limited the amount of cold medicine any one person can buy, since over-the-counter medications containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine can be used to produce methamphetamine.
Besides the 150 DUIs last year, most of the crime is directed at Wal-Mart, including shoplifting, check fraud and petty scams. The store's most serious incident was an officer-involved shooting in January, when a 25-year-old man pointed a fake gun at an officer who returned fire, wounding the suspect.
The vast majority of those arrested in Harrisville are from neighboring Ogden, population 77,000, said Harrisville Police Chief Max Jackson. Because of the increased volume of cases, court times have been extended to allow the city prosecutor time to negotiate pleas.
Despite the additional burdens, both Thompson and Jackson defend Wal-Mart as "good partners." Since the store opened, Wal-Mart has donated funds for a bike patrol program, firearms, computers in patrol cars and training materials and equipment.
Still, Jackson, who sits on the board of The National Center for Rural Law Enforcement, said he plans to raise Wal-Mart's impact on small police agencies as a nationally growing issue when the board next meets.
As for Thompson, Wal-Mart may have handed him an unintended prize. He was named the Utah Peace Officers Association Officer of the Year for 2002.
"It was based on the amount of arrests I made -- basically because of Wal-Mart."
©Associated Press 2004
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