Walmart is asking Wyoming’s lawmakers to bolster the state’s anti-theft laws against sophisticated, multi-person organized theft attacks.

In response, the legislative Joint Judiciary Committee during its Tuesday meeting in Torrington voted to draft bills that would increase the penalty for misdemeanor theft, decrease the monetary threshold for charging felony theft, decrease the number of “strikes” required to charge a repeat shoplifter with a felony and add penalties for people who cross county lines to commit crimes.

The committee has about eight months to fine-tune, change or reject this bill draft ahead of the Feb. 9 lawmaking session.

Organized retail crime involves multiple people, working out a structured plan to commit targeted thefts, often to re-sell the items, witnesses told the committee Tuesday.

“This is something we see happening across all our stores in Wyoming,” Walmart representative Deborah Herron, who appeared via virtual link, told the committee. “It’s certainly something we’ve seen… and would appreciate the opportunity to make things a little better in Wyoming.”

Two lawmakers asked Herron for specific figures relating Walmart’s losses to crimes like these in Wyoming, and how those compare to other states.

Herron said she didn’t have those figures on hand but would get them within the next couple weeks.

Retail crime’s cost to businesses including lost product costs, higher insurance costs, increased price of goods and unrealized wages was $222.8 million in 2021 in Wyoming, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports.

The total value of goods stolen from Wyoming retailers in 2021 was $9,769,336, the report adds. And the lost tax revenue that year was $1,175,800.

Commerce, Plus Liquor

Walmart wasn’t alone.

Retail advocates, a law enforcement group and the state’s liquor industry also urged legislators to take action.

Dale Steenbergen, CEO of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce and CEO of the Wyoming Chamber of Commerce, said the thefts are affecting other retailers across Wyoming.

A woman who owned a private meat market “broke my heart,” said Steenbergen, with the story of a man who held the fire escape door open to generate alarm while another man stole $900 worth of meat from the woman’s shop.

The number of people committing organized thefts like these is on the rise, the value of what’s being stolen is rising, and associated violence is also growing, said Steenbergen

Gone are the days when a clerk can tackle someone on the sidewalk without fear of getting shot, he added.

Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police executive director Allen Thompson echoed that, saying across his life’s work in the military and law enforcement, the most dangerous job he had was apprehending shoplifters.

“I received two stab wounds as a result,” said Thompson. 

How We Arrest Folk

Thompson suggested that the committee consider changing Wyoming’s preconditions for arrest.

Those say an officer can arrest someone without a warrant for any crime they commit in his presence. He can arrest a person if he has probable cause that that person committed a felony.

But misdemeanors committed outside the officer’s presence are trickier.

There are some exceptions such as for the misdemeanors of domestic battery and DUI.

But generally, an officer can’t arrest someone who commits a misdemeanor outside the officer’s presence, without a warrant, unless the officer has probable cause not only to believe the crime happened, but also that the person who committed it will not be caught if let go, may injure himself or others or damage property, or may destroy or conceal evidence in the course of his crime.

Thompson clarified in a later interview with Cowboy State Daily that not all members of his group, “but some,” believe easing those preconditions to make it easier to arrest someone would help them better investigate those retail theft campaigns.

Often simple shoplifting crimes turn out to be part of bigger, repetitive, and orchestrated schemes upon investigation – but it’s hard to arrest a passer-through on a newly-discovered felony charge if he’s already left town with a citation, Thompson indicated to the committee.

The counties that suffer the most from those campaigns are those along the interstate highways, he said, but small towns aren’t immune either.

Not Doing That Just Now

The committee did not draft a bill to change Wyoming’s preconditions for arrest.

But, on a motion from Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, the committee voted to draft a bill increasing Wyoming’s ability to enforce theft.

The bill as now visualized would reduce the threshold for a prosecutor to elevate misdemeanor theft charges to felonies (which are punishable by up to 10 years in prison) for stolen goods of $1,000 to $500.

It would also increase the misdemeanor theft penalty from six months in jail to one year.

And it would decrease Wyoming’s “five-strike” shoplifting law, so that a person convicted of shoplifting three times – rather than five – could be charged with a felony.

Committee Co-Chair Art Washut, R-Casper, proposed another bill draft, which the committee voted to pursue.

That one would add a standalone crime or sentencing enhancement for people whose crimes cross county lines.

If a person flees one county to avoid apprehension, prosecution – or in the furtherance of a new felony – the crime could be added to their charges, Washut noted.

Washut asked for a maximum five-year penalty to be attached to that.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.