Undercover Berkeley cop nabs Lululemon retail theft suspects
Suspect James Talton Jr. works as a security guard, according to booking records. Deja Munson has retail theft and robbery convictions.
A Berkeley police officer doing surveillance on Fourth Street caught two people who tried to take more than $900 in goods from Lululemon on Monday, authorities report.
A reader who saw a large police response in the popular northwest Berkeley shopping district asked The Scanner to learn more.
The officer, part of the Berkeley police FLEX team, had been "on the lookout for problematic crime trends such as organized retail theft," BPD said Tuesday in response to a Scanner inquiry.
Shortly after 2 p.m., the officer saw a man and woman park in the red zone outside Lululemon, at 1901 Fourth St., and take a nearly empty bag inside, authorities said.
When BPD alerted Lululemon loss prevention staff, they said they had "been watching … the suspects conceal merchandise in their bag" in real time on store surveillance cameras.
BPD "stop teams" ultimately detained the pair when they left Lululemon without paying, authorities said.
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James Talton Jr., 25, of San Pablo and Deja Munson, 27, of Vallejo were arrested on suspicion of organized retail theft, theft with a prior conviction, possession of burglary tools, conspiracy and burglary among other allegations.
According to court records, Talton was put on probation after a 2023 conviction stemming from commercial burglary and grand theft charges.
Munson was just charged in July with grand theft, commercial burglary and other crimes, which resulted in a parole revocation hearing, according to court records.
She entered a not-guilty plea in that case in mid-September.
Munson also has convictions for organized retail theft (2020) and robbery, in 2020 and 2022, according to court papers.
As of publication time, Munson had bailed out of jail and Talton was being held at Santa Rita Jail on $145,000 bail.
He is scheduled for arraignment Wednesday. No information was immediately available about Munson's next court appearance.
