Atlantic City Undercover: Analyzing Casino Crime

Atlantic City Undercover: Analyzing Casino Crime

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (CBS) — Three men are charged with carjacking a couple in the Trump Taj Majal parking garage and killing 28-year-old Sunil Rattu in September.

After the incident, the mayor demanded beefed-up private security.

“The casinos, which have cut back, should stand up to the plate and handle their own business,” said Atlantic City’s mayor, Lorenzo Langford.

The deadly carjacking prompted the CBS 3 I-Team to dig through more than two years of records of calls for police service at the 11 casinos in Atlantic City.

We found thousands of reported crimes.

The records show the Tropicana had the most calls for serious crimes. The Tropicana had:
*506 reports of larceny theft
*54 calls for aggravated assault
*9 for rape
*3 for murder
*almost 1300 calls for service in all.

The Taj Majal was second. That casino had:
*368 reports of larceny theft
*25 calls for aggravated assault
*3 for rape
*4 for murder

We wanted to know, has anything changed since the carjacking?

The I-Team’s Jim Osman went undercover. He visited the Tropicana and the Taj Majal, including their garages, for three consecutive days during the day and night.

While the I-Team found there are plenty of guards patrolling casino floors, in the garages we didn’t see much of a visible security presence. We only saw an Atlantic City police car once, and we saw just one security car at the Taj Majal. We did not see any other types of patrols.

Shepard Stein, who heads Taj Majal’s security, says that’s not the norm. He says they have bike patrols, private security guards and one off-duty police officer to patrol around the clock.

The state of New Jersey this year created a redevelopment authority in part to address security issues in Atlantic City.

The casinos tell us all the garages we visited are equipped with surveillance cameras.

The Taj Majal also points out that it pays for an off-duty police officer to be on patrol 24/7.

We reached out to the Tropicana for a response and did not hear back.

Reported By Jim Osman, CBS 3 I-Team