CBS News
U.S. cities, retailers boost security as crime worries grow among potential shoppers
Los Angeles — A flash mob of at least 17 masked thieves who pushed past holiday shoppers to rob a Nike store Sunday night near Los Angeles is exactly the kind of crime cities across the country are trying to crack down on this holiday season.
After a series of thefts scared away shoppers and shut down stores, San Francisco launched the Safe Shopper Initiative that involves beefing up police patrols to ease jitters.
The same goes for Dolphin Mall in Sweetwater, Florida, a suburb of Miami, where K-9s and extra officers will be more visible.
“You’re going to be probably the safest you could be anywhere, any place in the world,” Sweetwater’s mayor, Jose “Pepe” Diaz, said.
This comes as a new annual Gallup poll on personal safety shows more Americans fear becoming victims of a crime, with 40% of respondents to the poll saying they were afraid to walk alone at night within a mile of their home, the highest such number in the poll since 1993. Fifty percent of respondents feared getting their car stolen, and 17% said they avoid going to the mall.
On Monday, CBS News accompanied authorities as they carried out a raid in L.A., arresting suspected robbers accused of being involved in an organized shoplifting ring that targeted drug stores like CVS and Walgreens throughout California.
Even in posh Beverly Hills, officials said they are determined to keep shoppers safe. Police drones are now in the air 14-hours a day after a brazen daylight attack on a jewelry store in March of 2022 in which the suspects used crowbars and axes. Beverly Hills police officers are also monitoring 2,500 security cameras in the city.
“We’ve created this real-time watch center where all of the city cameras can be watched in a single place,” Beverly Hills Mayor Dr. Julian Gold told CBS News, adding that he believes the drones and security cameras have led to a decrease in crime, while helping shoppers and residents feel safer.
“If we don’t do something soon, our stores are going to be out of business,” said Aaron Jones, president and CEO of International Protective Service, which provides armed guards to commercial businesses nationwide. He says the number of requests for security guards has tripled since 2020.
“They realize that they have to do something to protect people,” Jones said.
In addition to extra security, some retailers are experimenting with new store layouts to help reduce blind spots and deter shoplifters. It’s estimated U.S. retailers lost a record $112 billion dollars in stolen merchandise in 2022, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation.
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Sen. Thom Tillis says “the scope” of Helene damage in North Carolina “is more like Katrina”
As recovery missions and repairs continue in North Carolina more than a week after Hurricane Helene carved a path of devastation through the western part of the state, the state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for more resources to bolster the relief effort and likened the damage to Hurricane Katrina’s mark on Louisiana in 2005.
“This is unlike anything that we’ve seen in this state,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday morning. “We need increased attention. We need to continue to increase the surge of federal resources.”
Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast U.S. after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Helene brought heavy rain and catastrophic flooding to communities across multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, with North Carolina bearing the brunt of the destruction. Officials previously said hundreds of roads in western North Carolina were washed out and inaccessible after the storm, hampering rescue operations, and several highways were blocked by mudslides.
Tillis said Sunday that most roads in the region likely remained closed due to flooding and debris. Water, electricity and other essential services still have not been fully restored.
“The scope of this storm is more like Katrina,” he said. “It may look like a flood to the outside observer, but again, this is a landmass roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, with damage distributed throughout. We have to get maximum resources on the ground immediately to finish rescue operations.”
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead after it slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2005, flooding neighborhoods and destroying infrastructure in and around New Orleans as well as in parts of the surrounding region. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in the last 50 years, and the costliest storm on record.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is at least 229, CBS News has confirmed, with at least 116 of those deaths reported in North Carolina alone. Officials have said they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts were ongoing, and a spokesperson for the police department in Asheville told CBS News Friday their officers were “actively working 75 cases of missing persons.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation released $100 million in emergency funds for North Carolina to rebuild the roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane.
“We are providing this initial round of funding so there’s no delay getting roads repaired and reopened, and re-establishing critical routes,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration will be with North Carolina every step of the way, and today’s emergency funding to help get transportation networks back up and running safely will be followed by additional federal resources.”
President Biden previously announced that the federal government would cover “100%” of costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures in North Carolina for six months.
With North Carolina leaders working with a number of relief agencies to deal with the aftermath of the storm, Tillis urged federal officials to ramp up the resources being funneled into the state’s hardest-hit areas. The senator also addressed a surge in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the Biden Administration’s disaster response, which have been fueled by Republican political figures like former President Donald Trump.
Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, were diverting funds from Federal Emergency Management Agency that would support the relief effort in North Carolina toward initiatives for immigrants. He also said baselessly that the administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, were withholding funds because many communities that were hit hardest are predominantly Republican. Elon Musk has shared false claims about FEMA, too.
“Many of these observations are not even from people on the ground,” Tillis said of those claims. “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their lives.”
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