Cops dress as Santa and his elf to nab shoplifters in California, netizens say 'great job'

Riverside Police Department’s Property Crimes Unit in California along with detectives and officers from the School Resource Officer Unit conducted a holiday enforcement program on December 10, in order to target retail theft at one of the most crowded and busiest shopping centers in Riverside. Termed as ‘Santa’s Intervention’, the program aimed at decreasing thefts and crime that increases during the holiday season. As a part of the operation, detectives and officers worked directly with loss prevention specialists at the Target store in the Canyon Springs shopping center.

'Way to go, RPD'

At first, they conducted video surveillance inside the store as other detectives and officers remained outside to help detain any theft suspects. Detectives waiting outside were dressed as Santa Claus and his elf. As soon as the suspect left the store with the product that he had stolen, the Claus and his elf would wait outside to detain him. The department took to its official Facebook page and shared images. According to the caption, three arrests were made as a part of this program. The first arrest included one ‘a woman who walked out of the store with a shopping cart full of stolen items after making no attempt to pay for the merchandise’.

The second arrest was of a local transient who is a habitual thief at this particular store. The caption read, “Loss Prevention and officers recognized him as he entered the store but stopped him before he could steal again. He was subsequently arrested for trespassing and being in possession of illegal narcotics”. The third and the last arrest was of Patrick Seilsopour, 55-years-old of Murrieta. He stole an expensive Lego toy set which was priced at $1,000. However, later, he was booked into jail. Unfortunately, due to the current bail schedules for “non-violent” offenses, he was quickly released with a Notice to Appear citation. 

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Netizens react 

Appreciating the effots made by the department, netizens bombarded the comment section. "Awesome idea to catch these people committing the crimeI wish the punishment were more severe to stop them from repeating the same shoplifting!", wrote a Facebook user. Another person wrote, "Ty for your service and get job. Retailers should get together and get the law rescinded to what it use to be. This takes a lot of money from retailers and in turn raises prices". 

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(Image Credits: Facebook/RiversidePD)