SEATTLE — The King County Prosecutor's Office said it is seeing a dramatic increase in retail thefts being charged. Local businesses say they’re experiencing more break-ins than ever before.
“We’ve been in business for 17 years and we have two locations and up until this last year, we’ve had zero break-ins,” said Cody Spencer, who is the owner of Pink Gorilla Games.
Not only are the break-ins ramping up, but so is the nature of the crimes.
“It’s really like a pressure cooker when you have these repeat offenses against you and you have no help whatsoever,” said Spencer.
People come from around the world to Pink Gorilla Games. A little over a month ago, Spencer said they were robbed at gunpoint.
“It’s extremely stressful trying to keep all the employees safe and keep business running smoothly."
Businesses in the Chinatown International District believe the problem is that no one is being held accountable.
“What we need is for someone or some entity to attack the problem at its root cause, at its basic cause,” said Public Safety Advocate and business owner, Tonya Woo.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is asking the state legislature to fund 10-full time positions for the Organized Retail Crime Task Force. They’re asking for $1.5 million a year. The goal is to collaborate between law enforcement agencies as they focus on organized crime rings.
“It’s important to send a message that this type of behavior won’t be tolerated but also that we hear businesses and collectively will take action on it," said Casey McNerthney with the King County Prosecutors Office.
Two prosecutors from the King County Prosecutors Office are on the task force. This year, the Prosecutor’s office has already seen a 100% increase from last year in the number of retail theft charges.
"Ultimately what we don’t want to see are people feeling it’s unsafe to go to King County or businesses leave,” said McNerthney.
Businesses are hoping anything will help.
“There’s nothing you can do to stop it, security guards aren’t going to stop it, nothing is except maybe this task force,” said Spencer.