By Police1 Staff
TAMPA BAY, Fla. — An investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found frequent 911 calls from Wal-Mart are putting a strain on local Florida police departments.
In 2014, police responded to over 16,800 calls at 53 Wal-Mart stores in three Florida counties — about two calls per hour every day.
“They’re a huge problem in terms of the amount of time that’s spent there,” Officer James Smith told the publication. “We are, as a department, at the mercy of what they want to do.”
The amount of attention the Wal-Mart stores require cuts into time spent patrolling other areas, such as neighborhoods. One local sheriff told the Tampa Bay Times the calls were a “tremendous strain on manpower.”
Many of the calls were not for serious crimes. According to the report, many of the 7,000 theft calls in Tampa Bay were for items that amounted to petty theft.
One retail analyst told the paper, “Law enforcement becomes in effect a taxpayer-paid private security source for Walmart.”
The retail giant generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the study found.
Among other findings:
- Officers logged fewer than 500 violence, drug or weapons calls.
- 9,000 general disorder calls included: suspected trespassing, lost property and people sleeping on the property. These calls resulted in only a few hundred arrests.
- Many businesses in the area paid more in property taxes than Wal-Mart but called police less.
- Wal-Mart’s reputation as a crime hotspot routinely influenced officers to show up unsolicited — 6,200 visits in addition to the 16,800 calls.
- One sheriff’s office in Hillsborough County found seven of the agency’s 10 busiest locations were Wal-Marts.
Local authorities are proposing solutions, including stationing cruisers and cameras in store parking lots, according to the report.