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(DAVENPORT, Iowa) — The city government of Davenport, Iowa, has released dozens of documents in connection with an apartment building that partially collapsed as three residents remain missing and the community demands answers.

The documents were published Wednesday evening on the city’s website. Three of the files were reports by a structural engineer who inspected The Davenport at 324 North Main St. earlier this year. The city had ordered the building’s owner to hire an engineer following various complaints from residents.

During an emergency site visit on Feb. 2, David Valliere from Select Structural Engineering reported seeing “a localized area of brick [that] is cracked and crumbling” on the west exterior wall of the six-story property, which housed commercial space at the street level and residential units in the floors above.

“This engineer determined that this is not an imminent threat to the building or its residents, but structural repairs will be necessary,” Valliere wrote in a letter dated Feb. 8.

During a follow-up site visit on Feb. 23, Valliere reported that the recommended repairs were being performed by a mason and appeared “to be going to plan,” but “the mason pointed out that the area immediately to the north of the work area has a large and potentially dangerous void beneath the façade wythe of clay brick.”

“This void appears to have been caused by the collapse of some mass of clay brick between the façade and CMU,” Valliere wrote in a letter dated Feb. 28. “This collapsed mass is now settled and piling up against the inside face of the façade, pushing it outward. This will soon cause a large panel of façade to also collapse, creating a safety problem and potentially destabilizing the upper areas of brick façade. This condition was not visible in the early inspection(s) and did not become apparent until repairs were under way and an opening was made by a smaller area of failing façade.”

The engineer made another follow-up site visit on May 23, five days before the building partially collapsed. During that visit, Valliere reported seeing “several large patches of clay brick façade” that were “separating from the substrate” on the west exterior wall of the building.

“These large patches appear ready to fall imminently, which may create a safety hazard to cars or passersby,” Valliere wrote in a letter dated May 24. “The owner has already blocked off the area with cones and has begun removing drywall from the inside of the wall to get a view of what might be happening.”

“Inside the first floor, the drywall is being stripped away. This reveals that the window openings were never filled with brick or block. Rather, the clay brick façade was just run right over the openings, unsupported,” the engineer added. “This lack of bracing helps explain why the façade is currently about to topple outward. The brick façade is unlikely to be preserved in place, but it can be brought down in a safe, controlled manner.”

When ABC News called Select Structural Engineering for comment on Wednesday, the person who answered the office telephone said, “We are aware of the incident and do not have any more comments at this time as we are still trying to determine the details of the situation.”

Davenport Development and Neighborhood Services Director Rich Oswald said at a news conference Thursday that an inspector mistakenly issued a permit to start repair work at the building as “pass” last week, when it should have been marked as “incomplete.” Then a system error changed it to be viewed as “fail” on the public-facing system, he said.

“We had an inspector go down on [May] 25, they made a field inspection,” he said. “That inspector left for the weekend. And when they returned on May 30, they went into the system to update their notes from that inspection, and noticed that they had in error they had marked it ‘pass’ when they created the permit.”

“Our IT department has worked to resolve that glitch,” Oswald said, adding that the employee involved resigned on Wednesday.

A section of the building collapsed on Sunday afternoon. More than a dozen people evacuated at the time and eight others were rescued in the 24 hours that followed. Several pets were also rescued.

On Monday, officials said there was no credible information that anyone was missing and the city would move forward with plans to begin demolishing the remaining structure the next day. But that night, rescuers found a ninth person alive inside and pulled her out of a fourth-story window. It was unclear how the woman was not found earlier by crews using thermal imaging, drones and service dogs. The development prompted protests from members of the community calling for the demolition to be delayed.

On Tuesday, the city’s demolition plans were put on hold as officials announced that five residents were still unaccounted for, including two men — Branden Colvin and Ryan Hitchcock — who may be inside. Crews rescued several more animals from inside the structure that afternoon but no human activity was detected, according to officials.

Then, on Thursday, officials announced that only three people remain missing — Colvin, Hitchcock and a third resident who lived in the impacted area of the building and with whom authorities have not been able to make contact.

Police on Thursday called it a “recovery situation” for Colvin and Hitchcock, noting that they’re likely inside the apartment building in an area that’s “not sustainable for life.”

Officials have warned that the structure is unstable and continues to degrade. Crews are working with structural engineers on how to best search the building while avoiding the pile of debris, which is currently contributing to the stability and its “removal could jeopardize or accelerate the inevitable collapse of the building,” according to the city government.

The city has fined the building’s owner, Andrew Wold, $300 for failing to maintain a safe and sanitary building, plus $95 for court costs. Wold is expected to appear in court on June 9.

When asked for comment, Wold and the property management team told ABC News in a statement: “Our thoughts and prayers are with our tenants and families during this difficult time. We would like to thank the brave men and women of Davenport fire, Davenport police department, and all other first responders for their tireless efforts to ensure everyone’s safety. We have been working closely with the American Red Cross and other agencies to assist the displaced tenants.”

They are also working to refund all deposits to tenants as quickly as possible, a property manager told ABC News.

ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw, Alexandra Faul, Jessica Gorman, Ahmad Hemingway and Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The surveillance video, from earlier this year, is startling: Four masked men march in a line through a Home Depot store in New York — two of them looking like menacing bodyguards — while the two others confidently push carts stacked with almost a hundred boxes of high-value items that they take but never pay for.

When the same crew, allegedly doing the same thing, was approached by a security officer at another Home Depot store nearby, one of the men threatened the guard.

“I’ll knock you out. This isn’t worth dying for,” he said, according to prosecutors.

As Home Depot executives describe it, that New York-area crew is part of a growing threat to Americans across the country: so-called organized retail crime, where groups of criminals steal prized items to sell online or elsewhere.

While this kind of theft has been around for years, retailers say it’s reached unprecedented levels, sparking deadly violence at some stores. And federal authorities now warn it’s become an “absolute threat” to public safety and public health, declaring that violent gangs, dangerous international crime syndicates, and even groups with suspected ties to terrorism are increasingly dabbling in organized retail crime across the United States.

“These criminal networks, they may be full-time drug traffickers, but they see an opportunity to work with a crew that’s already stealing,” said Raul Aguilar, who oversees international organized crime cases for Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “And because it’s hundreds of millions of dollars, [the money they make] can easily be diverted for [other] kinds of activities.”

‘Theft for greed’

“Organized retail crime is what I call theft for greed, not theft for need,” said Scott Glenn, vice president for asset protection at The Home Depot, which has been hit hard by organized retail theft. “[But] they don’t just come to a Home Depot and then decide to go home … they go to Target, they go to Lowe’s, they go to CVS, they go anywhere.”

The groups behind organized retail theft can be expansive — “like your traditional organized crime families,” as Glenn put it — or, as Aguilar noted, they can be just two or three people working together.

They target stores big and small, and they take whatever they know they can sell — from power tools and spools of wire worth $3,000, to designer clothes and even medical supplies, officials told ABC News.

“They do a lot of research about what is profitable,” Aguilar said. “They have shopping lists.”

Glenn said The Home Depot investigated about 400 cases of suspected organized retail theft in the past year alone — more than one per day — and that the numbers are “growing double digits year over year.”

The National Retail Federation’s most recent survey of retailers across the country reported a 26% jump in organized retail crime between 2000 and 2021, amounting to tens of billions of dollars in losses. Home Depot alone loses “billions of dollars a year” to organized retail crime, according to Glenn.

Asked what’s behind the recent spike of organized retail crime, Glenn cited two things in particular: the proliferation of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed people to stay “a little bit more anonymous,” as he put it, and the explosion of online marketplaces, where people can be even more anonymous.

According to the National Retail Federation, online sellers like Amazon and eBay have been particularly popular with retail thieves, but criminals are increasingly using peer-to-peer sites such as Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, which offer more direct transactions.

‘Keeps you up at night’

A Homeland Security Investigations report issued last year said estimates regarding organized retail crime found “the average American family will pay more than $500 annually in additional costs due to the impact.”

But there are also much broader — and potentially more concerning — implications, according to retailers and law enforcement officials.

“This isn’t just shoplifting,” noted Aguilar, saying that it impacts the supply chain — “and that has effect on the economy.”

At the stores themselves, according to authorities and retailers, thieves are often armed with guns, knives, bear spray, or even tools taken from store shelves.

“We’re starting to see a lot more violent acts taking place,” said David Johnston of the National Retail Federation. “It greatly impacts the retailer’s ability to keep their environment safe.”

At a Home Depot in Pleasanton, California, in April, Blake Mohs, a 26-year-old employee set to be married in August, was fatally shot after he tried to stop a suspected thief. Two people have been arrested on murder charges in the case.

And late last year, 82-year-old Gary Rasor, a retiree working at The Home Depot in Hillsborough, North Carolina, died after being shoved to the ground by an alleged thief, who was then arrested on a murder charge. The case against him is still pending.

“It’s unconscionable,” Glenn said of the deaths. “That’s something that keeps you up at night.”

Homeland Security officials are also concerned about who’s sometimes behind organized retail theft. Gangs and other dangerous groups, including the Aryan Brotherhood and crime rings from Eastern Europe and South America, have used organized retail theft to raise funds, according to Aguilar. And there are “definitely ties” between certain organized retail thieves and drug-trafficking organizations, including some of the cartels identified by the U.S. government as a global threat, Aguilar said.

In addition, said Aguilar, “some of these networks are tied to the terrorist financing networks around the world.”

When pressed for more details, he said, “There’s still too many active investigations, so I can’t really specifically get into those.”

Some media reports and others have questioned whether law enforcement officials and retailers have been exaggerating the scope of organized retail theft and the threat it poses to the U.S. homeland. As far back as 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that although retail and law enforcement sources cite “eye-popping figures,” there is “reason to doubt the problem is anywhere near as large or widespread as they say.”

But Aguilar rejected such suggestions, insisting organized retail theft “absolutely is a threat.”

‘Part of the solution’

Glenn said The Home Depot is looking to stem the tide of organized retail theft by “taking a multifaceted approach”: locking up often-targeted items behind cages, launching new forms of technology, and pushing Congress and law enforcement to do more.

Retailers expect the newly-passed INFORM Act, which requires online retailers to verify certain information about their sellers, to help combat the sale of stolen and counterfeit goods — but they say they also want Congress to allocate funds for a federal task force specifically targeting organized retail crime. The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which would establish a coordinated multi-agency response and create new tools to tackle evolving trends in organized retail theft, was introduced by the House of Representatives in February.

“The feds … actually have some really, really good data-sharing and intelligence-sharing capabilities,” Glenn said.

Meanwhile, as local and state authorities try to tackle the issue in their communities with nearly a dozen state task forces, Homeland Security Investigations is “using all of its investigative authorities” to do what it can, Aguilar said.

Over the past three years, the agency has tripled the number of cases it’s investigating, often using fraud-related and money laundering laws to open cases, he said.

But Aguilar said that to really help stop organized retail crime, consumers need to be “part of the solution.”

“I think the first thing they could do is pay attention to what they’re buying online,” he said, advising consumers to be skeptical of items being sold as new with deep discounts.

“Pay attention to who’s selling them, make sure to read the reviews,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — A beloved swan was reported missing from a New York state village’s pond on Monday. Three teenagers are now accused of killing the mother swan, who was then eaten, authorities said.

The three teens face felony charges in connection with the death of Faye, as well as the theft of her four cygnets — fixtures at the Manlius Swan Pond in Manlius, a southeast suburb of Syracuse, police said Wednesday.

The teens — friends from Syracuse — were arrested and charged with grand larceny and criminal mischief, both felonies, as well as conspiracy and criminal trespass, both misdemeanors, Manlius police said.

An 18-year-old suspect was arraigned and released on his own recognizance, police said. He is scheduled to appear in court on June 15. The other two suspects — a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old — were released to their parents because they are juveniles and will appear in court at a later date, according to police.

The teens allegedly hopped a fence overnight over the Memorial Day holiday weekend and captured Faye, who was nesting with her cygnets, and killed her at the pond, according to Manlius Police Sgt. Ken Hatter.

“Family and friends did consume the adult swan,” Hatter said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

The teens reportedly believed the swan was “just a very large duck,” and did not realize she was not a wild animal but property of the village of Manlius, Hatter said.

“They were hunting, is what they told us,” Hatter said.

Tips from citizens led investigators to a business at Shop City Plaza in the town of Salina, where they found two of the cygnets, police said Tuesday. The other two cygnets were subsequently found at a residence in Syracuse, police said.

The juveniles reportedly told police they wanted to raise the cygnets, which have since been turned over to a biologist, Hatter said.

Swans have been a fixture of the village since 1905, according to Manlius Mayor Paul Whorrall.

A male swan named Manny, who was Faye’s mate, was unharmed in the incident. He will be removed from the pond because he could become combative due to the loss of Faye, Whorrall said, while noting that swans mate for life.

The town is looking into increasing security measures at the pond in the wake of the incident.

“We’ve had swans for over 100 years, we’re going to continue to have swans as part of this village,” Whorrall said during Wednesday’s briefing.

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