Holiday shopping season means thieves in Modesto are dashing through the stores
Two dozen people have been arrested in recent weeks for stealing as Modesto police continue to address theft in busy retail areas across the city. Much of the attention by thieves — and consequently by authorities, too — is on Vintage Faire Mall and nearby stores because of their getaway proximity to Highway 99.
This year, “I’m not seeing purse snatches. I’m not seeing people’s cars getting broken into,” said Lt. Bob Meredith of the Police Department’s Investigative Services Division. He said thieves are targeting businesses more than people.
“They know that employees are not going to try and stop them most of the time,” Meredith said.
Hitting stores also means the thieves know exactly what they’re taking, as opposed to the literal grab bag they might end up with if they break into a vehicle for shopping bags left there. And because they are unlikely to be confronted by employees, they have a better chance of avoiding a robbery charge if caught.
Meredith said selling stolen goods can be as easy as opening up a shop on Amazon. Stolen items also show up on other buy-and-sell sites and at flea markets.
This type of theft is a major problem not just during the holiday shopping season. Meredith said other police agencies deal with it so frequently they eventually take a hands-off approach. “Instead of go looking for somebody, (other police departments) just go enter a warrant in the system and be done with it,” he said.
The MPD’s Property Crimes Unit arrested 24 people for theft and burglary in the past two weeks, according to a post Tuesday on the department’s Facebook page. The PCU said half of the people arrested were not from Modesto, and many of those are from the Bay Area.
“The few cases that did come from stores at the mall being victimized (this year) did not require coordination with mall security,” Meredith wrote in an email to The Bee. But he said in his experience, mall security always is willing and able to assist when requested.
“While many arrests have been in the Sisk Road corridor area, the unit has been doing operations all over the city. PCU’s great work has resulted in the recovery of over $20,000 in stolen property so far,” according to the MPD’s Facebook post.
Thieves “can just go in, grab a bunch of stuff and leave, and there’s not as nearly as much consequences as there has been in the past,” Meredith said, referring to Proposition 47.
After the proposition was passed in 2014, the Public Policy Institute of California found property crimes, including theft, went up. The purpose of Prop. 47 was to reduce “the penalties for certain lower-level drug and property offenses and (it) represented a further step in prioritizing prison and jail space for higher-level offenders,” according to the PPIC.
“We’re seeing people coming here, close to the freeway, to retail areas and doing shoplifting,” Meredith said. “Or there’s organized crews of three people that will come in. We’re finding people that we know are thieves, following them around and finding them stealing stuff.”
He said some officers in the Property Crimes Unit are undercover and while tailing suspects coordinate with uniformed colleagues.
Meredith said the thieves seen this year are “just being brazen.” In addition to the ones they’re catching, police are hearing of shoplifters going into businesses, “grabbing arms full of things and driving back to the cities they’re from,” he said.
The PCU arrested one person who had nine active warrants for theft from at least six other agencies, according to the press release.
Despite the focus on thieves who target businesses, the MPD also posted a list of holiday shopping safety tips on Facebook. Among other advice, the department suggests not shopping alone or leaving purchases in plain view in your vehicle.
The Police Department builds theft prevention, from Black Friday until after Christmas, into its budget, Meredith told The Bee. “There is no ‘extra’ budget,” he said. “We pay our detectives overtime to work overnight and on their days off from our overtime budget. Accordingly, we factor in what is a historical usage for these annual operations in that budget.”
According to the National Retail Federation, Americans have taken inflation into account this year by starting their holiday shopping early and making their purchases over multiple paychecks. But the NRF still predicts “healthy holiday sales” both in person and online.
“I think having those visible gatekeepers there does a lot,” Meredith said about the mall security guards. He said the mall also contracts with MPD to have two officers in the area every day until Dec. 25.
This story was originally published December 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
