Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano and Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza gathered with police officers and representatives of retailers in front of Marshalls at the Gateway Center on Central Park Avenue to announce the city’ s latest initiative to combat a recent increase in shoplifting thefts at big box retailers and other stores. From December 2022 to February 2023, there were 162 reported shoplifting incidents in Yonkers with many more incidents going unreported by local retailers.
“While overall crime in Yonkers has decreased dramatically in the last 10 years, the rise in property crimes in the last year, specifically with shoplifting, is concerning and requires immediate action,” Spano said. “Our obligation is to serve and protect our businesses and their customers, and with the precision approach by our police department to these offenses, we can drive out these criminals. These thieves are looking at shoplifting as a sport, but we want them to know ”“ it”™s game over when they get to Yonkers.”
Sapienza said that since December, just three people known to be repeat shoplifters in Yonkers and neighboring communities have been charged 14 times with felonies or misdemeanors. He said the person known to be the top shoplifter in Yonkers had just been arrested three times within three weeks.
“You will get arrested for your crimes and we will do everything in our power to hold you accountable to the full extent of the law,” Sapienza warned those who make shoplifting a routine part of their way of life. “There is no such thing as a victimless crime.”
The Yonkers Police are stepping up activities to deter shoplifting and catch perpetrators. These include: deploying plain clothes officers to posts in parking lots at retailing centers; meeting with retailers to offer guidance on adding security measures in stores and increase cooperation in prosecuting shoplifters who are caught; and increasing foot patrols in highly-trafficked areas.
“This affects everyone,” Sapienza said. “It affects the community, it affects the stores. We don’t want a store to have to close because they’re not profitable. What we try to do is offer solutions. Work with us. Tell us what’s going on. Report the crimes to us. Let us deal with the crimes and help us successfully prosecute the crimes. It’s very easy to just give up on this. It’s very easy to say, ‘just let them take what they’re going to take.'”
Spano said that some retailers have basically turned a blind eye to what has been happening. He described an incident in which Yonkers officers were in a parking lot and observed someone walk out of a store with two duffle bags filled with products. The police were told by store officials that they were not going to prosecute because the value of the items in those duffle bags was not more than $1,000.
“That’s exactly what we don’t want and we are starting to see change in attitude because we have been talking with the retailers a lot,” Spano said. “We could have picked any number of retail establishments to stand in front of. We picked Marshalls today but we could have been standing in front of the dollar store on Main Street in Getty Square. We could have been standing anywhere in our city. What’s happening has been across the board in every section of the city.”
