found online at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15776512
SANTA CRUZ -- Police ticketed three demonstrators camping on the City Hall lawn were ticketed early Friday and, later in the morning an argument between two protesters led to an arrest, Santa Cruz police reported.
Friday was the third day the Peace Camp 2010 protest has been held at the city complex.
The demonstration targets the city's camping ordinance, which prohibits sleeping outside between 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. It launched in front of the county courthouse on July Fourth and moved to City Hall early Wednesday.
An argument between two protesters around Friday morning merited drew police. One demonstrator claimed another demonstrator stole his bedroll the night before and a security guard told police he overheard the alleged thief threaten the bedroll owner with a knife, Vogel said.
David Hooser, 50, from Washington state, was arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace and theft, police said.
"It's a sad commentary when the participants of Peace Camp 2010 are the ones disturbing each other's peace," Vogel said.
Demonstrators are calling for the City Council to lift the so-called "sleeping ban" and exonerate everyone cited under the law since 1978. They say the tickets are unreasonable because there isn't enough shelter for the city's large homeless population.
City leaders and some homeless advocates have said the protest represents a small group of homeless and that those people are choosing not to take advantage of the city's many homeless services.
The numbers of campers at the protest has declined from nearly 60 at the courthouse to eight when police went to the demonstration around 2:40 a.m. Friday, Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Kevin Vogel said. He credited the reduction to police enforcement.
The camping tickets are less than $100, but if people rack up more than three city ordinance citations and fail to pay the fines, the violations become a misdemeanor.
Of the three people ticketed Friday, two listed the Homeless Services Center on Coral Street as their address. The third told police she was from Indiana but transient, Vogel said. He did not say how long she had been in the area.
Editors Note: There is NO walk-in shelter at the HSC for any homeless person who shows up and wants it. They must get on a 4 - 6 week waiting list for a spot that they can only stay in for 30 days. The fact that only 5 people are currently on the waiting list is due to the list being purged every two days (you have to re-apply every two days!!) AND that most able-bodied homeless people KNOW that they will NEVER GET IN and have stopped trying.
ReplyDeleteIt is a SHAM to say we have adequate shelter for our homeless population in Santa Cruz.
I believe the fellow arrested had taken someone's insulating pad and when confronted, actually told the on-site security guard he was going to 'shiv' (cf. stab) the person who said it was his property and stolen.
ReplyDeleteHence the police response.
The perp was not part of the encampment.
It IS notable, that despite the 'terrorist threat', the perp was released from jail a short time later.
This is typical.
The mentally ill and criminals who threaten the homeless or otherwise create sociological problems for them from within the large number of homeless in Santa Cruz, are released from jail with impunity ('immunity' if you would) to continue causing the perception of an unruly, unlawful homeless community.
It's called "Perception Management", and Santa Cruz' PR machine uses it regularly, albeit haphazardly.
I appreciate the above comment. I also feel that another reason the camp gets what is alleged to be a larger exposure of folks with "mental health issues" is the same reason it gets a goodly share of PHYSICAL health issues among it's visitors and sleepers: it is because these are the people who do not have their most elemental health needs addressed. other "services", if available, are generally not integrated -- they may cut you off from your natural support network to become allowed into their system. These homeless people come there because they are not getting shunned nor having their pockets picked nor getting tickets nor allowed to stay in the vacant building where their 'case managers' work in the daytime but nobody spends the night. It is because the camp is one of the few places left in this City who's participants actually SHARE their Vittles. Like Scotts Creek's stone soup kettle, there's something about sharing food that rekindles the spirit. But I see very little of this activity going on out in the open, in the City of Santa Cruz. (Kudos for a newish Food Not Bombs sighted recently.) If I were homeless or stranded just now, that is where I would probably need to go, where else is safe for somebody with limitations or special challenges getting thru' the day. Every other helping system; medical, sociological, judicial, cuts cuts cuts. How would even a Genie keep track of which Wednesday the courts are closed because of the skanky state budget, which City office's closing times match their door signs, which family doesn't get their food stamps because the post office "lost" a bag? I still can't get my head around when the Library is open, system shocker for me. We humans need a "parking place" and without it, we go nuts. Even if it is just for our backpack (some amazing people can do this!) People can put up with a LOT of whatever as long as there's a homebase, a safe zone. It is a shame on the rest of us that a more lucky homeless person's base continues to be a tiny hide-y-hole under a rock, while everywhere they turn they are unwelcomed and worse! Blamed by store clerks for the leavings of drug and needle users, preyed on by hustlers licensed and off the grid, often treated with either disdain or contempt, exaggerated by the flashlight's brain-blare, by police when wakened at night. No matter what hear in the news, no matter what electeds are saying, these homeless people I have seen, seeking out refuge behind the Peace flag and info table, will find no refuge from our mythologized shelter systems UNTIL they break down, and find themselves shelved in a nursing home or destroyed by the "elements" or are found battered to death under a dumpster. I don't understand the deep lies and the smear job. Dishonest to make up such exaggerations just to push the buttons of constituents, while not ever visiting the camp in person. may God forgive us all.
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