STOCKTON, Calif. — With crime prevention flyers in hand, a group of Stockton Police Department officers and the city's police chief walked through Stockton's busy Trinity Parkway shopping area Thursday.
The morning walk was aimed at highlighting crime, particularly retail theft, which employees say continues to be a recurring issue in the area.
"Every community is unique, has unique challenges and we're out with our business owners. They've had some challenges with some theft," said McFadden after walking out of one Trinity Parkway store. "The more we relationship-build and share in conversation as far as who's driving the theft, the more effective we're going to be."
During the two-hour event, McFadden and officers walked from business to business, talking with owners, employees and loss prevention managers.
McFadden encouraged businesses to sign up for the police department's business watch program while learning some businesses have already taken their own measures such as training staff, creating group messages among managers and remodeling their stores.
"The folks I spoke with that are already part of it are very happy with it, they feel it's helping and we're getting other business owners to jump on board with that," said McFadden. "What I found to be incredible is they're mitigating things. They're training their staffs on how to be more effective, on how to mitigate situations, on how to identify crime before it happens."
According to police data, at least 17 theft or burglary cases were reported at the shopping center during the month of May.
Police have made at least 8 Facebook posts this year asking for the public to help them find thieves connected to at least 12 theft cases in the Trinity Parkway area.
While police say there has not been a statistical increase in retail theft in the area recently, the shopping district was the center of a retail theft mission involving the California Highway Patrol and the Stockton Police Department in May.
"We focused on retail theft. It seems to be on the rise nationally. We're trying to get ahead of it," said McFadden. "We'll continue to partner with our other law enforcement agencies in the county. We'll continue to partner with CHP and we want the word to be out that we're going to be out here."
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