Hilton Head, Bluffton Walmart stores call police 10 times a week. What’s the top reason?
Walmart shoppers hunting for the lowest prices on eggs and children’s shoes might not realize there’s a hidden cost not included in the price tag: the taxpayer dollars.
Taxpayers in Beaufort County pay for the safety of some of Walmart’s shoppers through the stores’ frequent reliance on local law enforcement to deal with low level crimes and disturbances.
Walmart stores in Hilton Head and Bluffton call county law enforcement on average of 10 times per week, most commonly to request extra patrols to deter crime.
The two local big box stores accounted for 564 calls for service to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office over a 12-month period. Extra patrol requests accounted for 126 calls, or twice per week on average.
The frequent extra patrols raise questions of whether local Walmart stores are relying on local law enforcement to save on security expenses on the taxpayer’s dime.
However, they’re not the only ones benefiting from the service. County police responded to nearly 25,000 requests for extra patrols at local businesses in the same time period. Residents and neighborhoods can also request extra patrol to deter crime via an online form.
A 2019 analysis by The State newspaper found that police in Columbia responded to calls to Walmart on average of nine times per day.
Top reasons for calls to Walmart
The Bluffton Walmart, located at 4 Bluffton Road, made 327 calls for service to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s office between May 1, 2024 and April 30 of this year. That’s nearly one call per day.
Here were the top reasons the supermarket retailer called police:
Extra patrol: 73 times
Shoplifting/stolen property: 43 times
Disturbance: 33 times
Breach of Trust: 27 times*
Case Follow Up: 27 times
*27 calls were recorded on five separate dates. In a recent case, officers filed individual reports for 16 lunch items allegedly stolen by a former employee over a period of two months.
Hilton Head’s local Walmart, meanwhile, called county police 237 times in the same timeframe:
Extra patrol: 53 times
- Case Follow Up: 31 times
- Disturbance: 21 times
- Shoplifting/stolen property: 17 times
Hit and run: 12 times
Weapon: 2 times
Beaufort county police also responded to 100 calls in the city of Beaufort, but that doesn’t include any potential visits from the City of Beaufort’s Police Department.
