The New York Times - 06.08.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019 N A

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

A 21-year-old man was charged
with murder last week after shoot-
ing another man in the parking lot
of a Walmart in Auburn, Me. At
the retailer’s store in North
Bergen, N.J., a woman squirted
pepper spray at people around the
customer service desk in Febru-
ary, temporarily blinding some
employees and customers. She
then retreated into a back room,
wielding a knife and shouting ob-
scenities.
And on Monday a customer
grabbed a kitchen knife off a shelf,
began unwrapping it and threat-
ened an employee, prompting an
evacuation of a Walmart in Mari-
etta, Ga. A few weeks ago, a man
was arrested at the same store,
accused of trying to kidnap a 9-
year-old from the bathroom.
Walmart is the world’s largest
retailer, with more than 4,
sprawling stores dotted across ev-
ery region of the United States.
And partly because it operates in
so many places, crime, some of it
deadly, seems to follow it.
The shooting at the Walmart in
El Paso that killed 22 people on
Saturday was the worst episode to
happen inside or in the parking lot
of one its stores in the company’s
history. Police and law enforce-
ment experts have said there was
not much Walmart could have
done within that store to prevent
the gunman from carrying out the
massacre. But it has placed re-
newed attention on why the re-
tailer has historically been the
scene of so much crime, and
whether the company has done
enough to deter it.
In the week before the El Paso
shooting, at least three people
were killed at Walmart stores
across the nation, including two
employees who, officials said,
were shot by a former colleague at
the store in Southaven, Miss.
“In some ZIP codes, Walmart is
a significant driver of crime
rates,” said David C. Pyrooz, an
associate professor of sociology at
the University of Colorado who
was the co-author of a 2014 study
analyzing the stores’ impact on lo-
cal crime.
There are thousands of reports
of shoplifting each year, straining

the resources of local police de-

partments, who say they spend

much of their day processing

petty theft cases. Police have com-

plained that Walmart, renowned

for controlling costs, depends too

heavily on the local police and tax-

payers to prosecute wrongdoing

in its stores, rather than taking on

the responsibility — and expense

— itself.

In some cities in Kentucky, calls

related to Walmart sites ac-

counted for as much as 36 percent

of all crime reports, according to

one analysis. The police depart-

ment in Tulsa, Okla., logged 1,

more calls for service at their Wal-

mart locations than their next

leading retailer, according to a re-

port by Bloomberg Businessweek

in 2016. The Tampa Bay Times re-

ported that in some years local po-

lice departments received, on av-

erage, two calls every hour about

problems at Walmart stores in

several Florida counties.

With thousands of stores, cover-

ing nearly much of the United

States, the police say bad things

are bound to happen when people

of all walks of life coexist in an en-

closed space.

In many rural areas, Walmart is

the primary place where people

come to shop and socialize, and

bump into friends or enemies.

Sometimes these chance encoun-

ters lead to violence, as was the

case with the killing at the Wal-

mart in Maine late last month. The

two men, who were engaged in a

running dispute, encountered

each other in the Walmart parking

lot.

“It does suggest that if this is

the nature of your clientele, you

need to have security provisions

in place,” said Michael Scott, di-

rector of the center for problem-

oriented policing at Arizona State

University. “It should be built into

your business model. What is un-

fair is to say, if bad people come to

our store, that is the responsibility

of the police.”

Walmart says it has taken steps

to improve security at its stores,

like installing cameras in parking

lots, known as “lot cops,” and hir-

ing off-duty police officers on busy

days like Black Friday. The Wal-

mart greeters, who once only wel-

comed shoppers as they entered

the store, now have expanded du-

ties that include checking receipts

and helping with returns — in-

creasing interactions with shop-

pers that can act as a deterrent.

“You can never predict vio-

lence; no business can,” a Wal-

mart spokesman, Randy Har-

grove, said. “But what you can do

is prepare for it. We are continuing

to invest and change because

safety is a top priority.”

There were no armed security

guards on duty at the time of the

massacre in El Paso. It was a busy

shopping weekend, with the store

packed with people stocking up

for the new school year.

Because of open-carry gun laws

in Texas, Walmart shoppers at the

store in El Paso and other stores

around the state are allowed to

carry firearms openly.

“It adds to the chaos,’’ said

Shannon Watts, a founder of

Moms Demand Action. “If some-

one is openly carrying in Walmart,

how does anyone know who the

bad guy is or who the good guy is?

How do you know if that’s a police

officer or someone who intends to

do you harm?”

Walmart remains the largest

gun seller in the nation, even as

the company has been gradually

limiting the types of firearms that

it sells. The company stopped sell-

ing handguns in nearly all its

stores years ago and dropped

AR-15 rifles from its shelves in

2015.

After the mass school shooting

in Parkland, Fla., in February

2018, Walmart began requiring all

gun buyers be at least 21 years of

age, regardless of local laws. Last

month, Walmart stopped selling

guns in its stores in New Mexico

after the state expanded its law on

background checks.

Walmart now sells guns in

about half of its roughly 4,000 su-

percenters around the country.

Mr. Hargrove said the shooting at

the Walmart in El Paso has not

prompted any discussions among

the company’s senior manage-

ment about further restricting

gun sales.

“We have worked very, very

hard to be a responsible gun seller,

and we have tried a number of

things to support that mission,”

Mr. Hargrove said. “That is our fo-

cus as we go forward.”

In Marietta, a city outside At-

lanta, police receive at least one

call a day from the city’s two Wal-

mart stores, mostly for shop-

lifting. But in the past few weeks,

the store has been the scene of

more serious crimes. In June, a 9-

year-old boy said that while he

was using the restroom a man told

him that his mother had left the

store and he should come with

him. When the boy refused, the 51-

year-old man grabbed him by the

arm, the police said. The boy

broke free and found his mother,

who called the police.

Then on Monday morning, the

police received a call about a

“family dispute” at the customer

service desk that quickly escalat-

ed when a man grabbed a large

kitchen knife from a display. He

“was attempting to remove it from

the packaging while aggressively

approaching one of the Walmart

employees,” according to a police

report. The man was charged with

simple assault.

“Certain things tend to happen

in particular places,” Chuck

McPhilamy, the public informa-

tion officer for the Marietta police,

said in an interview. “Walmart is

one of them.”

Shooting Renews Scrutiny of Walmart Stores for Frequency of Crime

At least three people were killed at Walmart stores in the week before 22 people were fatally shot at an El Paso location on Saturday.

JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By MICHAEL CORKERY

A retailer has shirked

its duty to deter theft

to cut costs, police say.

David Yaffe-Bellany contributed
reporting.

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The following is an open letter
to Doug McMillon, the chief exec-
utive of Walmart.
Dear Mr. McMillon,
The massacre at your store in
El Paso over the weekend was a
tragedy.
So were the shooting deaths,
days earlier, of two Walmart
employees, at a
Walmart store in
Mississippi. So,
too, was the
mass shooting
early Sunday in
Dayton, Ohio — and the multi-
tude of others in recent years.
It is clear that this country is
suffering from an epidemic that
law enforcement and politicians
are unable or unwilling to man-
age.
In the depths of this crisis lies
an opportunity: for you to help
end this violence.
You, singularly, have a greater
chance to use your role as the
chief executive of the country’s
largest retailer and largest seller
of guns — with greater sway
over the entire ecosystem that
controls gun sales in the United
States than any other individual
in corporate America.
What happened over the week-
end was not your fault — but it is
your moral responsibility to see
that it stops.
The legally purchased weap-
ons that were used in the mass
shootings did not come from
Walmart. But guns in America
travel through a manufacturing
and supply chain that relies on
banks like Wells Fargo, software
companies like Microsoft, and
delivery and logistics giants like
Federal Express and UPS. All of
those companies, in turn, count
Walmart as a crucial client.
Economists have a term for
the kind of influence you wield:
economic leverage.
Walmart has used this lever-
age for years over its suppliers,
partners, distributors, rivals —
even cities and states.
Now you have the chance to
use that clout to help fix a sys-
tem that is clearly broken, to
solve a crisis whose costs are
measured in lives, not just in
profits and losses.
Other chief executives are
already stepping up. For exam-
ple, Marc Benioff of Salesforce
recently pushed his company to
stop working with retailers that
sell automatic and certain semi-
automatic firearms, high-capaci-
ty magazines for ammunition
and a wide variety of acces-
sories.
Ed Stack, chief executive of

Dick’s Sporting Goods, was an

early mover in removing guns

from his stores. He brought

important attention to the issue.

But unlike you, with your huge

scale, he did not have enough

leverage to create real, systemic

change.

You have already stopped

selling handguns and assault-

style weapons and raised the age

limit to 21 to buy a gun from your

stores (though you still sell rifles

and certain other types of guns).

I commend you for that.

Some critics have suggested

that Walmart stop selling guns

entirely, but you can use your

influence over gun makers for

good.

You could threaten gun mak-

ers that you will stop selling any

of their weapons unless they

begin incorporating fingerprint

technology to unlock guns, for

example. You could develop

enhanced background checks

and sales processes and pressure

gun makers to sell only to retail-

ers that follow those measures.

You have leverage over the

financial institutions that offer

banking and financing services

to gun makers and gun retailers

as well as those that lend money

to gun buyers. You could use

your heft to influence banks and

credit card systems to change

their processes around tracking

gun sales. They have none.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive

of JPMorgan Chase, wrote an

email to his employees Monday

calling on them to “recommit

ourselves to work for a more

equitable, just and safe society.”

Call Mr. Dimon. Tell him you

need his help to use the financial

system’s plumbing to create a

world-class method of tracking

gun sales with built-in safe-

guards. He has resisted — but

you are one of his clients.

Then call Tim Cook, Apple’s

chief executive, who says he is

heartsick about the violence. “It’s

time for good people with differ-

ent views to stop finger pointing

and come together to address

this violence for the good of our

country,” he wrote on Twitter on

Sunday.

Mr. Cook should listen to you

— after all, Walmart sells vast

quantities of his company’s prod-

ucts. Apple already bans the use

of Apple Pay to buy guns and

ammunition online, but it hasn’t

extended that policy to in-store

purchases. Shouldn’t it? And now

Apple is preparing to launch a

credit card with Goldman Sachs

and Mastercard. They could

establish a policy from the get-go

not to conduct transactions with

retailers that sell guns or only

those that follow a best-practices

protocol.

And what about calling C. Al-

len Parker, Wells Fargo’s interim

chief executive? Wells Fargo is

the bank to the National Rifle

Association, the leading force

against reasonable gun laws.

Now that there have been

killings at your stores, you have

a business interest in telling

Wells Fargo that as long as the

bank works with the N.R.A., you

won’t work with it. Wells Fargo

boasts on its website about a

Walmart-sponsored arrangement

to provide financing to your

suppliers. Maybe it’s time to

reconsider that partnership. Or

you could go further and con-

sider no longer accepting Wells

Fargo-issued credit and debit

cards in your stores. Give Mr.

Parker the stark choice between

working with the N.R.A. and

doing business with the country’s

largest retailer.

Over the past decade, Walmart

has spent tens of millions on

lobbying efforts in Washington,

much of it to push for lower

corporate taxes, which have

juiced your profits. You’ve also

lobbied to combat the opioid

epidemic and to support veter-

ans.

It would be easy for you, and

other chief executives, to argue

that controlling the gun violence

epidemic is Washington’s respon-

sibility, not yours. But in an era

of epic political dysfunction,

corporate executives have a

chance to fill that leadership

vacuum.

The 22 people who died in your

store this past weekend deserve

more than words of consolation

to their families. They deserve a

leader who is going to work to

make sure it never happens

again.

How a C.E.O. Could Curb Violence

ANDREW

ROSS SORKIN

DEALBOOK

Doug McMillon leads Wal-

mart, the largest U.S. gun seller.

MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES