LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 198

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

This week our host discusses the latest in LPRC news, research, visitors, and events! In this episode, our host discusses the LPRC Team attending the NRF Big Show in NYC, the amazing attendance at the LPRC Kickoff, a look back at Gus Downing's influence, a quick peek at the next strategic planning for the LPRC, and so much more. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more!

Hi everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast from the LPRC broadcasting from the University of Florida. And we're re picking up the mic and we're picking the mic up again after a short hiatus as our team has not stopped working but has been moving around the US and going through some pretty heavy duty roadmap planning for our team, how we're going to operationalize, implement, execute our strategy.

And at the same time, meeting with and setting up heavy duty road mapping exercises with not necessarily all 162 of our solution partners yet. These providers are fantastic, but we've identified the first eight that are right now heavily engaged in helping us build out the technology infrastructure needed to reduce crime and loss victimization at all scales, where the offenders again are moving from in the community

through the parking areas into locations. And then beyond after the event, regrouping, selling, planning, and then hitting the next victim within minutes or over time. So there's quite a bit going on. Myself, our COO Chad McIntosh, our engagement coordinator for solution partners Tom Keele, our director of research, Cory Lowe, Dr. Cory Lowe,

and myself were up in New York City really for the most extended time I've ever been there for the annual NRF Big Show. It truly is a big show, at least by my standards, 45,000 plus people from all over the globe coming in with a common purpose to make retailing, the experience, the outcome, the business itself more successful, but generating excitement and energy around retailing.

So a very exciting place to be, a very cutting edge place to be. And it's just a wonder to see the solution partners, how they invest in the big show. We were describing yesterday at our weekly kickoff meeting every Monday morning what it looks like. And we had meetings with several of these high-tech companies. And in at least one case, we went upstairs in one of the meeting areas.

They had open and closed meetings. It's just phenomenal, the booths and and people, the ideas, the energy, the technology, the innovation that's happening and continues to happen around retail. So it was amazing. Typically we described it as an Easter egg hunt. At first it was just me racing around trying to see if I could generate some relationships and engagement with those

that I thought would help our vision, then Chad or another person on our team would go as well, so that our easter egg we could kind of divide and conquer and move in two directions because it's just almost impossible to see every booth at the NRF Big Show, certainly to spend any quality time at booths and do that. And so this time with four of us, we really were able to get out, meet and greet our members. It was amazing how many LPRC solution partner and retailer company members now participate in the NRF Big shows for so long, it just didn't seem like the loss prevention asset protection area of the business was focused on at all, or very, very little at the big show.

NRF did typically, and has typically had their annual, one of their meetings for their loss prevention committee in conjunction with the show. And Gus Downing, who we want to always think about, honor, and really be grateful to, had his annual event for a decade or more that was really a neat function and part of the NRF and New York City experience. Gus was that guy. He connected people. He connected ideas. He made things happen. His event was a highlight of that experience in New York City, and he's just passed away. I understand Amber had an event. I really did plan on going and participating plan ongoing and participate in my, excuse me, participating myself, but I got dragged in another direction in a good way.

But I know that a couple of our team members, Chad and Tom were able to participate in that event, but just always looked forward to engaging with Gus, being part of his event, the way he put it together, the people he had. One example was New York City Police Department, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, on his second tour of duty as the NYPD Police Commissioner.

I can remember very, very distinctly his talk at the Gus Downing event. And as he was there with some of his protective duty detectives, but he laid out the way he viewed retailing. And I did not think at that time, and even today I'm a little stunned because I've only heard it a few times since then, in this case from retail executives, and one other time from a law enforcement leader, but the way he envisioned that New York City

was a vibrant, multimillion person community, an ecosystem, a true ecosystem, that was driven by history, and the highlights were good dining, great shopping. It was a place for the residents, for tourists, for visitors from surrounding states. Think outside of the city of New York. Think of New Jersey and Connecticut areas I'm not overly familiar with, but even down the way down to Philadelphia and up into Boston, coming down and spending time in New York City and experiencing the history and all that has to

offer. That ecosystem in the commissioner's mind and in the way he organized and executed his team as he talked to us about was designed to enable, to protect, to safeguard, to provide stability and security for that total ecosystem. And that included retailers. Retailers are crime victims, and he realized that. And that helped me years ago solidify that concept in my mind that, look, every time somebody steals from a retailer, defrauds that retailer

or somebody in their space, is aggressive or violent to people that are visiting or working there, whether it's instrumental as part of a crime or incidental or even accidental, that affects that place. They are a crime victim. And if that place is victimized, that's not a healthy community. That's not a healthy community. That's not a healthy ecosystem. They want vibrant and healthy retailing going on in that community. And his job, his role, and his 35,000 plus sworn law enforcement officers and

their civilians that support those efforts were to support that. And they were not under his time and command to view retailers as part of the problem, that they're inviting crime, that they're enabling crime because they openly display goods for sale. That he understood they have to, they're in stiff competition, they wanna create exciting experiences

for their customers and their employees. They have to compete against other brick and mortar retailers intensely, and they have online selling intensely competing against them as well. And so that immediate engagement with products, the excitement, the energy around that, the additional sales you can get, that allows for better choices and decisions on

what you buy to have that visual visceral experience was critical to retailing, but it made them more vulnerable to theft and so on. But he was determined that he was going to have people that specialized like Tariq, who's now an assistant commissioner at the NYPD and others highly motivated, experienced and skilled law enforcement officers that are going to be dedicated to supporting the retailers, understanding the issues, the dynamics, using crime mapping and everything. And it was just an amazing experience for me. And I know I'm off on a tangent, but I think that helps inspire and inform where we are

and where we're going at the LPRC. And that the big show and Gus Downing enable those types of things and help shape everything shapes our vision and all of us, not just LPRC and what we can get done. It builds and informs. So just wanna talk a little bit about clearly this year, I had the experience of not having to race so quickly

and try and see dozens of solution partners that we are working with or would like to work with. I could slow down a little bit, spend more quality time at specific ones and sites to fulfill what I would think anyway is a part of our strategy. And people were very supportive and I've never seen so many LPAP people, and again, so many LPAP solution partners, vendors, is this time even walking at least twice on the streets of Manhattan and having somebody yell out, Reed, before you rarely saw anybody. I might see Chad at Bloomies or Joe or somebody else

at Macy's walk by and talk to them, but that was it. So this is, it's amazing. Clearly the C-suite across retailers are thinking and talking and investing in loss prevention asset protection issues. Crime is not taking a holiday. It's hit the C-suite pretty hard in a lot of ways, as we all know. And the solution partners, partners of course are very responsive and very many of our dedicated LPAP solution partners were there now that would not have been in the past,

but so many other non solution partner, excuse me, APLP oriented solution partners are offering what they believe are good solutions. So that's just part of the experience. Our planning and road mapping are using, excuse me, the New York City and Big Show venue. We had the opportunity to engage at some really neat other social events as well, as we divided up.

And so we culminated the week, at least for our team, at the LPRC kickoff event. Again, traditionally it was 30, 40 of us that were in New York City visiting the big show or those that were working there live and work there. Let's get together. You're an LPRC-er, you're part of our community. Let's hang out.

What's that look like? And Bloomingdale's has long provided a venue in their training room at their flagship store, one huge square block store. It's unbelievable you got to go there. And we're so kind to host us, provide refreshments, and get some NYPD and other surrounding law enforcement to get retailers and solution partners together that are part of the LPRC community. It grew to 100, a little over 100 standing room only, what the training room would hold. We were all excited and happy about that. AT&T Business stepped forward with Michael Culinary, who's global retail head there and heads a massive portfolio,

is obviously Andre Villa and Lee and others that came forward, Greg Schwartz and Gruber, Greg S. We'll just call him and some of the marketing team, and said, no, wait, wait, we'll stand up. We'll step up and say, look, we're going to help you host this event, make this even more world-class, and put us into Hudson Yards last year. This year, we're gonna help you host this event, make this even more world-class

and put us into Hudson Yards last year. And this year, we're hoping that can continue. We're up there on the 101st floor, I believe it is, with just incredible view. And again, like last year, it was severe clear, just clear blue skies. You could see for miles, it seemed like, up and down the Hudson River and across Manhattan, just a spectacular

venue. Unbelievable. And great panels. Thank you Lieutenant Recupro from NYPD Real-Time Crime Center. And Joe Cortezas I was on, he had been retired as an inspector, which is pretty high rank. And he was a command over the real time crime center at that time, now with 3SI REN and doing some amazing things. And then we also had Eddie Quello from FaceFirst.

He headed up as part of his dues at NYPD for I believe at least a decade. The NYPD real time Center's facial recognition unit that has played a role in so many major crimes in speeding up the time to protect and getting high-impact offenders off the streets so we can stop them from offending and victimizing others. It was a great panel, but Dr. Lowe, Corey put together just an incredible series of panels, the content, the look and feel of the decks and the visuals to tell the story was amazing.

And my understanding at one point is one of our teams said they counted 235 or six participants in the room. And so it was again standing room only, amazing content and venue. And I want to thank all the amazing sponsors that were there. As I've heard Corey say, his grandfather taught him, don't name one because then you're going to need to name everybody and you're going to forget. So we are going to be making some of our slides available to our members So we are going to be making some of our slides available to our members from that event, like all of them in the LPRC's Knowledge Center. All members and all their team members for them can get into the Knowledge Center, which

has hundreds of research briefs, our slide decks, video clips from our webinars and certain sessions and events. It's a wonderful source for all things LPAP that we generate. So that's kind of it. We'll fill in more blanks on our strategy and where we are. What's going on in SOC and Fusion Lab is to me unprecedented. Today we're hosting at 1230, our first more, I guess,

all member Safer Places Lab Gainesville engagement meeting. We're gonna conduct these every other month here in Gainesville, again, with Gainesville PD, Alachua County Sheriff's Office, University of Florida PD, the Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, the Public Safety Institute here that Santa Fe College has to train all first responders

in this North Central Florida area and other stakeholders as we plan and execute a much safer community. You'll see other stakeholders from the mayor's office and commissioners at the city and county level, fire rescue agencies, code enforcement and the feds and many others that are gonna be participating in this amazing effort. So with no further ado, I'll sign off.

I wanna again, point everybody to lpresearch.org and check out our website. We try and keep that fairly up to date. It's pretty extensive website so we can do what we can do. But please check us out there on a little bit on Twitter, a whole lot on LinkedIn, both LPRC putting things out and myself, Reed Hayes. So I wanna thank everybody for tuning in.

Please pass the word. We had a meeting yesterday about the Crime Science Podcast and some discussion about it, and more to come on that. So stay safe and stay in touch. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime Science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only

and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.