Menards: 137 Joliet Police Calls This Year To Jefferson St.

JOLIET, IL — The Joliet Police Department averages 12 service calls every month at the Menards store, 2524 West Jefferson St., a Joliet Patch data analysis found. While 137 Joliet police calls may seem high to some, it's considerably lower than 528 Joliet police calls to the Walmart Supercenter next door, 2424 West Jefferson St.

With the year drawing to a close, Joliet Patch has been examining some of the businesses around Joliet that generate a high volume of Joliet police calls and why that's the case.

On Dec. 20, Joliet Patch wrote about the Walmart's 528 police calls and on Dec. 18, Patch produced a story about the 244 Joliet police calls to the Starr Inn motel at 2219 1/2 West Jefferson St.

At the West Jefferson Street Menards, Joliet police wrote up an official incident report on 72 of the 137 service calls the agency had received through Dec. 9.

The other 65 police calls for service were resolved at Menards without the need for any criminal investigations.

As of Dec. 9, Joliet police had opened at least 38 criminal investigations involving a retail theft inside the Menards.

However, some Joliet police reports are not categorized as retail thefts, but rather as thefts over $500 or thefts under $500. As a result, in addition to the 38 retail thefts from the Jefferson Street Menards, Joliet police handled seven thefts under $500 plus seven thefts over $500.

As of Dec. 9, there were 10 separate police calls involving a retail theft that were resolved by officers at the scene without any arrests or the filing of a police report.

What else brings Joliet police to the popular building supply store?

In May, police investigated an animal cruelty complaint involving someone leaving their animal inside their vehicle. That same month, Joliet police investigated two separate social distancing complaints. Police resolved one of the social distancing complaint at the scene, and in the other case, the social distancing offender left Menards before police arrived.

In September, police investigated a criminal damage to property case at Menards and in late November, police investigated two separate cases involving aggravated fraud involving a government entity.

Additionally, Joliet police issued a crash report on at least 10 separate auto collisions in the Menards parking lot so far in 2020.

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