On October 2, 2024, the first-ever King County Public Safety Summit on Organized Retail Crime (ORC) convened in Redmond, Washington, bringing together regional leaders, law enforcement, business executives, and prosecutors to address the escalating threat of retail theft. Hosted by Challenge Seattle in collaboration with the Washington Retail Association. The summit marked a significant step toward fostering a long-term public-private partnership aimed at combatting organized retail theft throughout King County and beyond. Challenge Seattle Report.
The event featured a diverse range of speakers, including former Governor Christine Gregoire, U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman, Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom, and King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion. These leaders discussed the complex nature of ORC, which has become one of the most pressing public safety challenges in Washington State. According to the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), Washington State faced more than $2.7 billion in retail theft in 2021 alone, making it the second-highest state per capita for these crimes.
One of the summit’s most anticipated outcomes was the launch of the Organized Retail Crime Resource Hub, presented at the event by WR’s President & CEO, Renee Sunde. This new online platform is designed to help businesses and law enforcement partners collaborate more effectively. The resource hub offers tools to share information across jurisdictions, improving the coordination of efforts to detect and prevent criminal activities before they strike again. By streamlining communication and providing a central repository for best practices, the hub aims to be a key asset in reducing organized retail theft across the Puget Sound region. The resource hub can be accessed at ORCResourceHub.org.
The success of this inaugural summit lays the foundation for further statewide efforts to curb ORC, with the potential for the strategies and solutions developed to be shared with other counties and presented to the Washington State Legislature for broader implementation. By leveraging collective resources, the public-private partnership formed at the summit aims to create a safer environment for businesses, employees, and communities across Washington.
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