Title: Target looting draws attention to company’s history with police - Vox
Headings: Target’s history of working with police is not a good look right now
Target’s history of working with police is not a good look right now
A damaged Target in Minneapolis has shined a light on the company’s cozy programs with cops.
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Content: Lake St. Target, which got looted tonight, is literally Target’s experimental site for loss prevention & surveillance policies geared toward poor people. Very few people in the neighborhood like that Target,” security engineer Ian Coldwater explained in a tweet. “ It’s also why Lake Street Target is so consistently awful in different ways to all the other ones, it’s engineered to be that way.” Target denies this. “Target’s Lake St. store is not, nor has it ever been an experimental site for loss prevention and surveillance,” Target spokesperson Jessica Carlson told Recode. “ We use the same technology and tools in this location as we do across our stores. It’s a combination of technology, including cameras, as well as team members with extensive training to support guest and team members safety and store security.” Carlson added that the company has “never used any type of facial recognition in this location.” Others have dug into Target’s past to highlight the company’s work with the Minneapolis Police Department. The company offered the city “ financial and intellectual support ” for the city’s SafeZone program, which set up a network of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras all around downtown Minneapolis and gave radios to business owners for sharing issues in real time.