Georgia's ORC Effort - Past, Present, and Future

By Katie Tuttle
Content Manager

(Continued from yesterday)

Incorporation of GRAORCA into GRALPC

In February of 2012, Rick Freese, who at the time was a field LP executive with Target, approached the GRALPC with a plan to implement an Organized Retail Crime Alliance (ORCA) in the Atlanta market. “It quickly made perfect sense to all involved that Atlanta needed an ORCA and that it was a perfect complement to the already-established Council, and the objectives aligned with our mission statement,” said Liberatore.

With the blessing of Rick McAllister, the President of the Georgia Retail Association, the GRAORCA was founded days later. Freese immediately took a seat at the Council and sub-chaired the GRAORCA.

Freese and Rory Stallard, Market Investigations Manager at Toys “R” Us, got things moving quickly, enlisting members and establishing monthly meetings at Alpharetta PD headquarters. Within a matter of weeks, the group closed their first ORC investigation.

“We were able to shut down an ORC enterprise that involved merchandise for drugs which netted three arrests and impacted $350,000 in laundry detergent losses from four Metro retailers,” said Stallard. “Due to the collaboration of multiple retailers and multijurisdictional LE involvement and cooperation, we were able to quickly investigate and successfully close this case.”

Since then, the GRAORCA has grown considerably. “What started as one or two retailers has evolved into multiple retailers and several law enforcement agencies,” said Stallard.

Freese, who recently left the Council and joined a new company, began the process of shopping for a database that would better enable GRAORCA members to share intelligence with law enforcement.

Sherri Dindal, Central Investigations with Home Depot, whose recent experience while at Mejer included playing a leadership role in the implementation of a similar database project in Ohio, volunteered to assist in the efforts underway in Georgia. Soon thereafter, and working with the Council, Netsential was chosen to develop the GRAORCA database.

GRAORCA.ORG was officially introduced out at the GRALPC’s Law Enforcement Only Conference in September, and upwards of 100 Law Enforcement and LP professionals immediately signed up for the service.

Dindal said the database is a great way to quickly send information.

“It also allows law enforcement to look at trending and patterns,” she said. “It allows members to share information across the entire state; it’s not pinned down to a certain area or city.”

Dindal said it is the group’s hope that they’ll be able to drive a lot more information to the website, so that more and more Loss Prevention and Law Enforcement professionals will naturally gravitate to the database.

Despite the push for GRAORCA.org, Dindal said they still plan on using the website and the monthly meetings equally.

“We can still benefit from both,” said Dindal. “Having the face-to-face and having the opportunity to network is still critically important to our success.”

Overall, the group of retailers can see only positives from the creation of GRAORCA; positives for the retailers, the law enforcement members, and the general public.

“It’s a collaborative organization that allows us to go out and solve crimes together,” said Dindal.

Continued tomorrow: final segment