Home Depot exec calls on Congress to pass bipartisan organized retail crime bill

Home Depot Vice President of Asset Protection Scott Glenn is asking Congress to pass legislation aimed at combating organized retail crime groups, which he argued have become significantly more aggressive.

Employees are being threatened with “knives, guns, and other physical attacks,” Glenn said in prepared testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement and Intelligence.

Glenn’s role is to ensure the protection and security of associates, customers and merchandise at the over 2,000 Home Depot stores across the nation.  

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Passing the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2023 – a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year – would mark a “critical step” in helping retailers stop this brazen theft, Glenn said.

If passed, it would support an increase in federal coordination with state and local law enforcement to fight retail crime, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). 

“These individuals are becoming increasingly aggressive,” Glenn said. “They are dangerous and often care little about any consequence other than getting out of the store with as much product as possible.” 

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Glenn said one of the reasons theft has gotten more aggressive is in part because of “the availability of drugs, opioids and fentanyl specifically,” which has “driven a need for easy and fast cash.”

Over the past three years, Glenn said he has witnessed a “significant uptick in our store and asset protection associates coming into violent contact with criminal actors” despite various efforts to prevent such events from occurring.

The growth of organized retail crime has caused the retail industry to take measures they wouldn’t have considered years ago, he said. 

For one, Home Depot has been locking up products, employing off-duty police officers and security guards, and putting police cars at the front of its stores. 

“Despite these efforts, the problem continues, and we have tragically even lost associates to these encounters,” Glenn said. 

His testimony comes after the NRF brought industry leaders and retail brands to Washington, D.C., “to advocate for change and meet directly with their congressional representatives” during Fight Retail Crime Day on Oct. 26.