- December 19, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Shoplifting and theft no longer are crimes hiding in the shadows.
Security and law enforcement officials in Santa Fe say the bad guys are increasingly brazen — and at times violent — as they steal goods or money, then flee from area stores and restaurants.
“We can see from the numbers that when there is an encounter, we are seeing it is at a higher level of violence,” said interim Santa Fe Police Department Chief Paul Joye. “We have increased our close patrols in business areas to be a deterrent to crime, and we ask employees not to confront people if they don’t absolutely have to.”
Though police say calls for relatively minor crimes like larceny or breaking and entering are down compared to 2019, calls for violent battery and assaults are up — and their effects are increasingly public at Santa Fe businesses…
