Thread by @stoplapdspying

We recently found emails between @Target executives and @LAPDChiefMoore from last summer. They’re part of Target's long history of working closely with police forces across the country. Thread:

Barely 48 hours after George Floyd’s murder, Target emailed Moore: “Issues in Minneapolis - Translating to LA?”

The email began, “At Target HQ we often discuss that when all is said and done, we believe history will say that California got it right.” The fuck does that mean?

A couple hours later, @LAPDChiefMoore writes that “a BLM organized demo" with "verbal assaults on our people.” As people across the country were starting to condemn policing, Moore was whining to @Target that people yelled at cops.

The next day, Target wrote: “The Minneapolis 3rd Precinct is in flames and belongs to protesters now.” Moore replied, “How tragic.”

Soon after, Moore declared at a press conference that George Floyd’s death is on “the hands of protestors as much as it is those officers."

Target later sends a photo of hundreds of NYPD outside a Target, plus "love to LAPD from Target HQ." Moore replies: “Don’t see us having this type of staffing ability.. :)” He later adds: “We couldn’t muster the 200 cops NYPD did but the people we did put there stood tall.”

After protests spread in LA, Target writes: “LAPD was AMAZING for us. Assistant Chief of Operations Robert Arcos was my point of contact and even last night at 1am he was texting me with updates.”

@ChiefArcos left LAPD and now runs @GeorgeGascon's Bureau of Investigation.

Why do @Target and @LAPDHQ have such an "AMAZING" and "loving" relationship? Target has a long history of underwriting LAPD violence.

In 2007, @BillBratton had Target donate $200,000 for LAPD to buy Palantir, which runs LAPD’s architecture of surveillance and racial profiling.

Palantir helps run the federal deportation machinery, used to kill migrants and separate families. LAPD used @Target’s donation to create the Operation LASER "predictive" policing program, which targeted people for surveillance and police brutality. propublica.org/article/privat…

The next year LAPD announced a network of spy centers built with “Target & BLUE, through which Target partners with law enforcement by providing equipment, grants, training and world-class forensic support." lapdonline.org/july_2008/news…

The whole point was for police to collaborate with corporations on caging people. LAPD boasted that these spy centers would mean “increases in the number of arrests” and enhance “cooperation between LAPD and our private sector partners.”

An LAPD brochure on the spy centers says “Sponsored by Target” with Target's logo and “INVESTIGATE - COLLABORATE - INCARCERATE."

Remember that motto next time you see pearl clutching about looting at a Target. lapd-assets.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/RCC…

Over the years @Target has convened police from across the U.S. at its Mineapolis headquarters for its Safe City program, which funded a network of police surveillance systems including cameras and licensed plate readers in Compton: perf.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/Fr…

More on this @Target program: “Modeled after a community surveillance program in England, Safe City uses video and computer equipment to help police patrol neighborhoods by remote control, coordinated with security workers at participating businesses.” washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…

We often say incarceration is "warehousing" of people, a continuation of enslavement treating humans as property. That's exactly how @Target Vice President @nategarvis explained their role: "It struck me that following repeat criminals was really an inventory-management problem."

Target even paid the state to aggressively criminalize poverty, funding staff at prosecutor offices tasked with “prosecuting repeat criminals.” @amyklobuchar (at the time Minneapolis's head prosecutor) boasted that Target “doesn’t just give us money – they demand accountability.”

Target’s complicity in policing also includes “community” events to sanitize LAPD violence. Here’s LAPD inviting people to to fill a military vehicle with gifts at a Target store:

https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/status/1063616192747687936

All this work by @Target to advance surveillance and underwrite police violence could explain why Target stores are so often a flashpoint in uprisings against police. Target has made itself integral to police violence. This violence loots our communities.