Rob McKenna: It doesn’t always turn out well for shoplifters in Washington

A viral video out of Vancouver, Wash. is raising questions about what store employees can do when they catch a shoplifter. It turns out, Washington actually has an answer.

“They were attempting to detain this girl, in the process it appears she bruised her knee,” former State Attorney General Rob McKenna told Rantz and Burns. “… I would say that the company probably has a case that they used lawful amounts of force to detain her and keep her from leaving.”

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“What’s interesting with shoplifting is that these statutes in Washington and Oregon actually address merchants,” he said.

The video of the WinCo employees wrestling with a 14-year-old girl who allegedly stole a candy bar has prompted harsh criticism of the company and its employee. The girl was booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center on charges of second-degree robbery.

McKenna said that Washington law states that merchants can detain shoplifters in their store or in the immediate vicinity. In this case, the parking lot. But the statutes don’t clarify what reasonable use-of-force is in these instances.

While there isn’t clarification on that point in Washington state law, McKenna said there is a professional organization with standards for how to handle a shoplifter — the International Association of Professional Security Consultants. Loss prevention employees fall into this field.

McKenna said they suggest six steps when dealing with a shoplifter:

• Observe the person approach the merchandise
• See the person select the merchandise
• Observe the person concealing it and walking away
• Keep the person under constant observation as they walk away
• Observe the person failing to pay for the merchandise
• Detain the shoplifter outside the store, or after the last point of purchase

“Unfortunately, shoplifting is quite common and a lot of bigger stores have loss prevention personnel and they have training,” McKenna said. “But it doesn’t always turn out well as we saw with the WinCo video.”