A hugely successful shoplifting blitz was held at stores throughout the Washington Square Mall area Wednesday, leading to 13 arrests and the recovery of several thousand dollars in merchandise.
Through the blitz, police officers and detectives team up with loss prevention employees to saturate a specific area. In real time, they watch for people who are shoplifting or engaging in other criminal activity and work together to make arrests. The goal is to show criminals that police take proactive measures to stop them.
As a result of Wednesday’s blitz, officers recovered at least $8,000 in merchandise, 80 blue M30 pills which likely contain fentanyl, burglary tools, evidence of identity theft and located a replica handgun.
According to detectives, many of the criminal suspects who were arrested appeared to know what they were doing and came to stores with specialized devices, bags or other tools to interrupt retail anti-theft devices.
This blitz would not have been possible without an enormous amount of interagency cooperation and support. We’d like to thank loss prevention employees, patrol officers, mall security, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington County District Attorney’s Office for their assistance.
Source: Tigard Police