LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 237 Ft. Eric Trehern

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

In this episode, Director of Research Dr. Cory Lowe sits down with Eric Trehern from The Home Depot LIVE at the 2026 LPRC IMPACT Conference! They explore how retailers are leveraging real-time data, technology, and cross-industry partnerships to improve awareness, decision-making, and operational response across the retail environment.

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. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Crime Science podcast. My name is Corey Lowe, I'm the Director of Research at the LPRC, and I am honored to be joined today by Eric Trehearne, senior manager of AP Investigation, at the Home Depot. Welcome, Eric.

Thanks, Corey, for having me. It's an honor to be here, and I think my alumni status from the University of Georgia, I must say, go dogs, but I appreciate you guys hosting me. No, that's awesome. It's Georgia's an amazing state. They've got a lot of amazing universities in the university system up there. Y'all are doing amazing things at Home Depot. I think you have one of the best intelligence programs in the nation and in the industry. And that may be because you have a background in law enforcement. So since you've started out in law enforcement, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into the private sector?

Yeah, for sure. No, I appreciate the question. Yes, I spent almost a decade in law enforcement at the local level, and the transition for me was really twofold. It was, if I'm being really honest, it was a happy wife, happy life transition, as well as about impact and scale. And so I spent almost a decade, like I mentioned, working complex investigations,

and what drew me to the private sector and eventually the Home Depot was the opportunity to take some of my investigative mindset, apply it in a way that directly protects a business, its associates, and ultimately its customers. And I am a proud Home Depot customer as well. Organized retail crime is truly dynamic. It sits at the intersection of crime, commerce, and community impact. And I realized that I could leverage that law enforcement background to build cases, develop teams and influence strategy at a national level while still working closely with law enforcement, which is a big passion of mine.

Fantastic. So you've done a lot of work on case building, and I think that's been a huge focus over the last several years has been we need to build better cases and provide law enforcement and prosecution with the evidence they need to prosecute these cases. That drives action, right? If you can't build a good case, prosecutors aren't going to take it. At the same time, we need a real-time response, right? We need to be able to get law enforcement to show up at stores when they have some of the ORC element

that tends to get more aggressive, oftentimes a lower level, but it's still a problem. So we need to be able to drive real-time response. We also need to be able to drive prosecutable cases. How do you balance those two needs as you're working with law enforcement and building those partnerships and relationships? I mean, it's a complex question, and it's a constant tension if I'm being truly honest. If you lean too far one way, it loses effectiveness. Case building is what drives long-term disruption without a doubt, taking down networks, not just individuals. But if offenders feel

like nothing happened in the moment, you truly lose that deterrent effect. So for us, for the Home Depot, the key is a layered approach. You need to build and bring strong, strong investigations, linking incidents, building enterprise level cases, but you also need real-time capabilities, which includes store level awareness and engagement, rapid intel sharing, and partnerships with law enforcement that allow for timely intervention. Where, again, where we've seen success is integrating those two, so using real-time incidents as building blocks for larger cases, while still creating visible consequences. So it's designing your program, so every stop, every recovery, every report feeds the bigger

picture. Reporting, that's a huge, huge piece. Your store level reporting are the building blocks for the cases that you eventually build, right? You have to have those reports to understand where your problems are, what you need to address, all of those things. At the same time, you have a very, very busy store team. They have a thousand other things that they're doing. So how do you balance that need to get the intelligence that you need while not overwhelming or overburdening those store teams. Yeah. You have to respect that first and foremost,

the stores run in a business. If reporting feels like a burden, it won't happen consistently. So we focus on simplicity and value. First, making reporting as frictionless as possible. Streamlining tools, making clear expectations, no unnecessary duplication. Second, we close the loop.

I'm a firm believer that recognition is a tool and you can recognize your way out of a problem. So if you're a retailer that's having difficulty with reporting at the store level, go back and close the loop. Recognize frontline associates when they do report information up. Help them understand that their product led to arrests. It led to recoveries. It led to a larger case.

And you'll find that your engagement goes up significantly. And then last, we prioritize what matters. Not every incident needs the same level of detail. So we guide stores on what's critical versus what's informational, and that balance has really proven to be effective for us. Yeah, I think that closing the loop piece is a critical piece. We talk a lot about the rational choice model and rational choice theory that people are driven by the costs and benefits of an action. That's offenders, right? If they think that they can get product without very much work or much risk, they're going to steal it.

prosecutors if they are getting cases that they can't prosecute they're going to be a ton of work they're going to choose cases that are actually prosecutable law enforcement are going to respond to cases that they can do something about and they're not just showing up to take a report the same thing is true with store teams why why they do something if it doesn't actually do anything it doesn't lead to any outcomes and it's just a waste of their time so closing that loop is absolutely critical now going back to your experience in retail and long enforcement, you bridge, you bridge both of those sides of the equation. How do you go about maintaining, but not just maintaining, building and then maintaining relationships with local

law enforcement given that you're working at the national level? Yeah, no, I appreciate the question there as well. I think, and you nailed it, relationship, when people ask me about what's the number one tool that you utilize in ORC investigations, it is relationships. It's the number one tool in the toolbox, pun intended coming from home people. But first and foremost, it starts with trust, and trust is built through consistency from my law enforcement days agencies, value partners who bring credible cases, who bring organized evidence, who respect their time. We focus on being a value-added partner that means bringing solid case packages, doing the upfront work, and aligning with their priorities, not just our priorities as a retailer. It also means

staying engaged beyond the ask, sharing intel, supporting broader investigations, and recognizing the partnership. No one wants to be in a one-sided relationship where you're constantly the one coming and asking for something. So having a relationship is an ongoing thing. It's not just when you need something. Now, technology. Technology has played an increasingly important role, and there's a ton of amazing things

happening. And with law enforcement technologies and retail technologies, that's a lot of. and everything else. When you look around the industry, what do you see is the number one greatest opportunity for innovation in the ORC space? Where do you think there's work that needs to be done to innovate to support your teams and support the business?

Yeah, it's tough to pick just one. And being here at LPRC conference this week and walking the lab yesterday evening, there's so many options that retailers can go to. So if I had to merge one or pick one, it would be intelligent data integration. Often you hear that single pane of glass. But bringing together all that fragmented data sources into a single actionable view. Right now, I just mentioned we have a lot of data, transactions, video, online marketplace information, license plate recognition,

but it can often be siloed. And so the real opportunity is using whether it's AI or a platform to merge. those to identify patterns, link cases, surface networks in a much faster, more organized way than a human could do. So technology shouldn't just collect data. It should accelerate decision-making. Most definitely. And you've got a fantastic partner at the Home Depot with Ben Shorts. I did a session with them yesterday evening. And the intelligence program that y'all put together at Depot is just, it's incredible. Now, there's a lot of misconceptions about ORC. One of the things that I mentioned earlier is that there's this difference between your lower level,

habitual offenders, repeat offenders, versus your complex networks that you're working to dismantle every day. What do you think is the most common misconception about ORC or ORC investigations that needs to be corrected out in the public's mind, policymakers's mind, and just in general? Yeah, I mean, there's a few out there, I think, but for me, Just to boil it down into one, it's just, people think it's just shoplifting at scale, and it's not. It's so much more than opportunistic theft. What we're dealing with is truly organized, networked criminal activity. It's often tied to fraud, money laundering, and broader illicit enterprise criminal activity,

whether that's human trafficking, narcotics trafficking. We've seen these groups are very structured, adaptive, and in many cases highly sophisticated. The other misconception I throw out there is that retail can solve it alone, that we're the big guys on the streets and multi-million dollar organizations. And ORC is truly a shared problem. It requires collaboration between retailers, law enforcement, prosecutors, and you mentioned just a minute ago legislation. Yeah, definitely. And a lot of this is touching a lot of other segments of industry. Like you said, a lot of other aspects of society are also impacted, so we probably need to broaden some.

those partnerships even beyond our current thinking. But Eric, it's always a fantastic opportunity when I get to talk to you and pick your brain about some of these issues. And we appreciate you joining us on the crime science podcast. Do you have any final words that you'd like to say other than go dogs? You knew where I was going. Corey, no. It's been a pleasure to engage with the LPRC and be a part of the real-time intelligence-sering

working group. And I appreciate you having me today. and have a great rest of the week. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast,

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