Cops vs. Street Vendors

First time ever I've seen this in HK. It seemed like I was part of a tv/movie scene. Me and my friends were at central and was walking towards the MTR station. We decided to take a look at those street vendors' stuff...like clothes, purses, etc. (these vendors were selling things illegally and that's why all their items were displayed on top of boxes so that they could fold up and put things away quickly) So anyways, we stopped at a stall with clothes. The lady was selling 3 clothing items for $100...so that's pretty cheap. My friend picked up top and was looking at them when suddenly we heard a shout and the lady folded up her stall in like 2 seconds and ran off. We turned around and saw all these vendors running with their stuff and cops running after them. During this time my friend didn't know what to do with the top that she was holding so she just placed it in this box that was left there. This dirty-looking bum came around and started taking all these left-behind items (I guess so that maybe he could try to sell them later?). Anyways, there was this one vendor...he was selling fake purses. So a cop caught him by grabbing his man-purse. That vendor just shook off his man-purse and ran like crazy (dropping his box full of purses...i guess it's better to leave behind all his goods than to be arrested). But he fell down as he was running...like literally fell and rolled a bit. I thought for sure the cops would be able to get him but nooooo, that vendor got up and ran back the other way eluding 2 or 3 cops (I think). That was really funny to watch. So either that vendor was really good at escaping or the cops were totally out of shape...I think I'm gonna conclude with the latter. How can the cops not catch that guy after he fell???? Makes NO sense at all. Too bad I didn't have a camera to record it. It was quite the experience.