America's absurd war on 'organized retail crime'

Tara Anand for BI

One Saturday last October, private investigators working for Lululemon and Victoria's Secret walked into an outdoor flea market in San Francisco's Mission District and pretended to go shopping. The handful of vendors at Arriba Juntos, Spanish for "upward together," are mostly immigrants trying to keep up with the rising costs of rent and groceries. Since white shoppers seldom visit the market, one of the vendors suspected that the investigators were undercover cops. Sure enough, uniformed officers with the San Francisco Police Department soon descended on the market's stalls and without a warrant arrested two women who were selling bras for $20 each.