Salem police recently arrested 11 people in a state-funded anti-shoplifting operation at Willamette Town Center, but only one is facing criminal charges.

It was the Salem Police Department’s fourth retail theft operation in the last year thanks to a $99,355 state grant.

Only one person is in custody following the June 26 arrests – a homeless woman who stole items for comfort, according to a police affidavit.

The other 10 people arrested are not facing criminal charges, court records show.

The operation was part of the department’s effort to crack down on shoplifting at Salem stores. 

“Willamette Town Center definitely seems to be a hotspot for what’s happening within the city of Salem with retail specifically,” Sgt. Andrew McFerron, who helps oversee the operations, said.

Around a year ago, TJX, the parent company of several stores inside the shopping center, reached out to the Salem Police Department about the financial losses due to five or six “prolific offenders” stealing from its Salem stores, McFerron said.

After four operations at the center in the last year, there hasn’t been a decrease in store theft, he said.

“For these levels of offenses, people are generally not staying in jail, so they’ll typically get let out and … we’re seeing following offenses occur,” McFerron said. “So there ends up being a bit of an aggregation of cases or incidents that somebody has before everything finally goes through in court.”

The department’s Felony Crimes Unit worked with loss prevention staff at several stores at the shopping center, including TJ Maxx, Sierra Trading Post and HomeGoods, a police statement said.

After receiving a grant last summer from the Oregon Department of Justice, the department has used it to pay for overtime and equipment for three retail theft operations at Willamette Town Center.

The same grant is funding retail theft operations at Keizer Station stores. The Keizer Police Department received $168,000 in grant money to deter store theft, according to reporting by Keizertimes.

McFerron said the department is aiming to use the grant for quarterly operations on retail theft and partner with other stores or shopping centers losing money.

With each operation, officers communicate with store staff who watch for people hiding stolen items or walking out of the store with a cart filled with items they didn’t pay for. When people leave the store with the stolen items, officers can either release them with a citation or lodge them at the Marion County Jail.

If a person stole less than $100 worth of items and has no other offenses, they will likely receive a citation and be released, according to McFerron. Meanwhile, people who steal more than $100 or have other offenses get booked in jail and charged.

The woman in custody after this operation faces a second-degree theft charge for stealing $176 worth of goods from Sierra Trading Post, according to a police affidavit.

McFerron could not say how many of the 11 arrested in this operation were booked into jail or cited and released.

The statement said this was the largest number of arrests compared to previous operations. The previous ones led to six arrests each, according to McFerron.

Of the people arrested June 26, five have previously been charged with second-degree theft, according to court records.

McFerron said the people arrested have been a mix of those stealing as part of an organized group and those with addictions stealing to make quick money.

“In a few cases, we’ve also been able to plug people who are struggling with addiction into resources, and it’s hard to keep tabs on where they’re at and how they’re doing now, but I think even (if) we’ve been able to steer one person in a different direction through that, it’s a win,” McFerron said.

The department can connect people struggling with addiction to recovery services like Marion County’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program.

The operations are also informing officers on places people go to sell stolen items, known as fences. McFerron said that these operations have helped then start investigations into the retail fences around Salem.

Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].

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