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Malls cite safety record despite holiday incidents
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
It was a crime-ridden and even deadly holiday season at some of the nation’s shopping malls, and local malls saw one shooting, one stabbing and one high-profile employee theft last month.
Still, mall officials stress that malls continue to be safe places.
“Think about how many people come through the mall in a year and I think you would see the safety factor is probably better than a lot of places,” said Leigh Burnett, marketing director of Citadel Mall.
Citadel Mall gets about 7.3 million visitors a year, Burnett said.
A shooting took place in the mall’s restroom near the food court during the first week of December; no one was seriously injured. In another holiday incident, a Footlocker employee called police to say the store had been robbed at gunpoint. It was actually an employee theft.
Burnett said mall officials met with the Charleston Police Department in West Ashley early in December, and this month met with the city’s new police chief, Greg Mullen.
“They are focusing on specific areas where there are more incidents than others,” Burnett said. “They know where the problems are. They’ve been very proactive, which makes us feel better. If you look at the overall crime rate in the nation this year, the numbers are up.”
Charleston had 23 homicides in 2006, compared with 11 in 2005. North Charleston had 29 homicides last year, also up from 11 in 2005.
“It was just a bad year around the nation, so we’re hoping this trend does not repeat itself this year,” said Spencer Pryor, spokesman for the North Charleston Police Department.
Two people were stabbed in a domestic incident that took place at Northwoods Mall on Dec. 23, the busiest day of the year for the mall. One victim was hospitalized and another was treated and released. Northwoods is at the center of the largest retail hub in North Charleston. Traffic easily increases 20% for the mall during the holiday season, said marketing director Leslie Riley.
“Northwoods Mall has over 12 million visitors annually and when you compare that to the incidences of crime that is reported, it is a very minute percent,” Riley said. “Please understand that we take every incident very seriously and one of our top priorities is the safety of our shoppers and employees.”
Pryor said such violent crimes are isolated and not usually connected to the mall. Most of the crime that occurs during the holiday period involves car burglaries or shoplifting, he said.
“These types of incidents normally don’t involve people that have the intent of going to the mall to shop, but they have underlying intents and they’re using the mall for that meeting location to conduct other types of transactions,” Pryor said. “We see people using the mall location as a place where they can blend in with others there and they don’t look out of place.”
Holiday violence was far grimmer at some other malls in the nation last month, including a Christmas Eve shooting at a Florida mall that left one man dead in front of a music store.
“Unfortunately things do happen at retail centers and other places, but our shopping center owners and mall management will put in place steps to minimize those types of crimes and violent acts,” said Patrice Duker, spokeswoman for the International Council of Shopping Centers. “They certainly are trained to minimize the effects on the whole center so it doesn’t go center-wide and is contained if something happens.”
ICSC has also been working with George Washington University and the Department of Homeland Security on a DVD-based training program for retail industry security guards. The $2 million program should launch in about six months and will be a free course for ICSC members.
“For this initial program we are trying to train 20,000 security guards,” Duker said. “That’s how many spots we’re able to fund.”
The curriculum deals with terrorism awareness as well other violent crime. Upon passing a final exam, individuals will have received the same type of training that the Department of Homeland Security gives to first responders.
“After 9/11, the retail industry took a step back just to kind of perform an analysis of what they have in place,” Duker said. “After they did their due diligence, you started seeing things come into place.”
Among newer security measures are concrete barricades or pilings that some malls have installed at entrances to prevent criminals or terrorists from driving through a mall entrance. Some malls have employed extra security guards or plainclothes security personnel.
“Every center has different dynamics, whether it’s demographics, whether it’s location, or whether they’re seen as a high-profile property or a low-profile property,” Duker said. “Unfortunately, violent crimes are going to happen anywhere.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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