It’s not unusual for the department to send a van to transport all the criminals Ross arrests at this Walmart. A computer check reveals five outstanding warrants for her arrest. Picking up the odor of pot, Ross takes a look in her handbag and finds marijuana roaches, along with a small scale and a pill bottle full of baggies. At one point she pretends to vomit into a trash can. She rattles off excuses: The cards were given to her by a friend, she’s just gotten out of the hospital, she’s dehydrated. Employees caught her using phony gift cards. They bring in a middle-aged woman with big sunken eyes and pale cheeks, her hair tied in a messy bun. Photographer: Johnathon Kelso for Bloomberg Businessweekīefore he can finish the paperwork, Walmart security employees catch another shoplifter. Ross slips a pair of reading glasses out of his bulletproof vest and writes the young man a summons to appear in court. “You’re a man now.” He tells the mother that because it was the boy’s first offense, he won’t be arrested-but if he messes up twice more, he’ll be charged with a felony. “You need to start taking responsibility for your actions,” Ross tells the teenager. He also attempts to calm the boy’s mother, who rushed to the store and is worried that her son won’t be able to enlist if he gets a criminal record. Ross focuses his gaze and talks in a low voice to the young man, who just graduated from high school and plans to go into the military. In a corner of the room, an off-duty sheriff’s officer, hired by Walmart, makes small talk with the employees.Īs soon as Ross walks in the door, around 2 p.m., he’s presented with an 18-year-old who tried to leave the store with a microwave oven. Four Walmart employees watch the monitors, which toggle among the dozens of cameras covering the store and parking lot, while doing paperwork and snacking on Cheez Whiz and Club Crackers. It’s a small, windowless space with six flatscreen monitors mounted on a pale blue cinder-block wall, and on this hot summer day, the room is packed. Officer Ross: “I’ve got all my bad guys in one place.”ĭarrell Ross-Officer Walmart to his colleagues in the Tulsa Police Department-operates for up to 10 hours a day out of the security office of a Walmart Supercenter in the city’s northeast corner.
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