A store manager of a Ross Dress for Less clothing store in Denver, Colorado, says thieves target her store as many as three or four times a day, without confrontation.
CBS News Colorado visited the store and spoke with a concerned shopper who videotaped one recent incident where a group of thieves stormed through the store, filling bags with merchandise for several minutes before leaving the store. The witness was appalled by the incident.
"It's just a free-for-all," the woman said. "It was really frightening." The store's manager told CBS this kind of brazen organized crime happens every day.
"It happens a lot, it's sad," store manager Ashley Finley told the local outlet. "I would say that kind of incident happens four times a day."
Finley said it was company policy to not engage with shoplifters, so thieves can take anything they want without being stopped. She called the constant theft "frustrating."
"…We're not allowed to touch them, follow them, or we are putting our job in jeopardy. We don't even intimidate them at this point -- they just come in here, get what they want, then they leave. We can't touch them, can't grab anything from their hands, can't put ourselves in jeopardy," she said.
Retail theft in Colorado is expected to cost retailers $1 billion a year, industry expert Chris Howes told CBS Colorado, which results in higher prices being passed onto customers.
The president of the Colorado Retail Council added that the rising theft was a sign of a breakdown in our culture.
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"To have this breakdown, culturally, where people can just storm into a store and take what they want is a breakdown in civil society that we all need to focus on," Howes said in the report.
He added that organized retail crime is fueled by drug users who swiftly turn merchandise into cash through selling the goods online.
Organized retail crime is growing and becoming more violent, according to a recent report from the National Retail Federation, causing some companies to leave flee cities.
Walgreens, Nordstrom, Whole Foods and Old Navy have had to close stores in some cities due to increased shoplifting and safety concerns.
A consumer and retailer industry expert said businesses will continue to leave cities as it has become difficult for them to maintain a profit with organized retail crime and theft at an all-time high.
"We’re seeing the highest level of organized retail crime and theft ever," Lakshman Lakshmanan, senior director in Alvarez & Marsal’s consumer and retail group, said to The Washington Post.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ross Dress for Less Corporation for comment.
