While Tucson branches of major retailers hired off-duty law enforcement to combat threats in security and shoplifting during the holiday sales bonanza of Black Friday, many independent local retailers didn’t see the need to.
Black Friday shoppers bring in enormous amounts of money to businesses, which can account to up to 30 percent of a retailer’s annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2015 Holiday Trends and Expectations.
But sometimes with the Black Friday masses comes the concern of violence and crime.
Across the web, there are hundreds of videos taken of Black Friday becoming dangerous — crowds stampeding, people getting injured and killed and fights breaking out over big-ticket items.
Not only that, shoplifting communities around the internet, such as the Reddit group, “Shoplifting,” have lists of tips for people planning on taking advantage of the Black Friday swarms to get away with smaller, more expensive items.
Larger retailers such as Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others tend to hire off-duty law enforcement and extra security due to the increase in shoppers on Black Friday, said Sgt. Pete Dugan, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
“If you have that many more people you’re probably going to see an increase in shoplifting incidents, which is why lots of the stores hire extra personnel,” Dugan said.
Lauren Marks, who manages the Target on North Oracle Road near the Tucson Mall, says the store typically increases their security for black Friday, seeking help from local law enforcement.
The Walmart Supercenter on Valencia Road also brought on extra security for this year’s Black Friday, according to a Walmart spokesperson.
“Some of these places have a ton of extra security and people watching the cameras,” Dugan added. “Extra security and off-duty officers aren’t oblivious to the fact that there’s shoplifting.”
However local retailers like Razorz Egde and PopCycle on 4th Avenue said they’ve never had issues with violence or shoplifting, adding that they don’t hire any extra security for the busiest shopping day of the year.
We do have cameras in case anything goes missing but mostly we don’t see an increase during [Black Friday]. We have a very community-oriented store and our customers are awesome,” said PopCycle owner DeeDee Koenen.
Razorz Edge employee Zandra Minerva was of the same opinion.
“No, we don’t increase security or anything like that,” she said. “There are a lot of people shopping at the time and they’re pretty good about (not shoplifting.)”
The stores that are hiring security, though, hoped to combat the Black Friday hordes and keep shoppers safe while preventing theft.
“You have triple or quadruple the amount of people shopping during Black Friday,” Dugan said. “When you have that many people in a store there are definitely concerns.”
