WATCH: Cops Raid Park, Arrest a Dozen People, Including a Child—For Helping the Homeless

To "protect" society from the likes of "criminals" who"d dare to help out the homeless, police raided a park Sunday and arrested more than a dozen people.

Cops Issue Man $250 Ticket Because Eating Pizza at a Bus Stop is Illegal in the Land of the Free

San Francisco, CA — Window tint, smoking a plant in your own home, not wearing your seatbelt, walking across the street, sagging your pants, and even building a sand castle — can and will get you extorted, kidnapped, caged, or even killed — in the land of the free. And now, eating pizza while waiting for the bus can be added to the list.

According to the San Francisco Gate, a man, who also happens to be homeless, was fined $250 for eating pizza while waiting for his bus to arrive. He was waiting at the corner of Market and Seventh street, holding the pizza he’d bought as a birthday treat for a female friend when the temptation to eat a slice was more than he could bear.

While indulging in his piece of the pie, he soon found himself the focus of a police investigation. The homeless man was then cited for eating pizza. Yes, you read that right. He’s was charged with eating pizza in public; more specifically, eating in the bus stop shelter. The law is real, yet according to Kelly Cutler with the Coalition on Homelessness, the violation is rarely enforced. The man needed help with paying the fine, so he sought out the help of a local homeless advocacy group.

“Some people get agitated or upset, but he was being a good sport…He laughed about it. He kept saying he bought the pizza for his friend on her birthday,” Cutler said. He was given a citation on March 5th and was due on court on April 5th, but Cutler said he does have legal recourse. If the man can show he’s seeking help for being homeless, the court will likely dismiss the charges which can carry a hefty fine of $250.

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SFGate wrote, “Homeless outreach workers said Monday that they could not recall a similar instance of pizza prosecution, although another coalition worker did recall that a client of his had been cited some months ago for skateboarding on a Fulton Street sidewalk at 3 a.m., instead of in the street.” Cutler called the ticket a “waste of police services” and doesn’t seem to understand why now, all of a sudden, the police are enforcing laws long overlooked.

The Free Thought Project understands why police go after the homeless. In short, the answer is revenue generation. As TFTP has reported on numerous occasions, there’s a lot of revenue which can be generated when police departments target agencies which help the homeless, as well as the homeless themselves. Those who help the homeless can find themselves on the wrong side of the law. In one

In one such case, a few entrepreneurs sought to reclaim discarded food and provide it to the homeless. They were arrested. In another instance, a homeless woman was arrested and charged with charging her cell phone in public.

While some see the police fines, arrests, and penalties as a war on the homeless, instead of a war on homelessness, others simply see such police actions as revenue generation. At any rate, there’s something to say about an America which doesn’t allow people to eat pizza at a bus stop. So much for being the land of the free!

City Erects Prison Camp to Deal with Homeless – Cutting Off Food & Water

Santa Ana, CA — The City of Santa Ana has come up with an innovative and despotic way of keeping their homeless population in check — imprison them. The city is now party to a federal lawsuit over unreasonable seizure, false imprisonment, and due process violations.

Heading up the lawsuit on behalf of Michael Diehl, who has lived at the encampment for three years, is the ACLU of Southern California. The lawsuit demands the immediate removal of the 6-foot-tall chain-link fences penning in 75-100 people and their belongings.

“Defendants’ actions have not only illegally restricted the liberty of the homeless people living in the encampment, but it has also cut them off from access to food, water, and medical care thus threatening their health and well-being,” the lawsuit states.

According to Courthouse News:

Diehl was shot in the head at a Tustin convenience store in 2009. He lost his right eye and doctors were unable to remove the bullet from his head. He takes medication every day to control seizures that have become more frequent with the increased presence of authorities at the encampment, he says in the complaint.

When a woman suffered a seizure at the encampment after the fence was erected, Diehl says, paramedics had difficulty reaching her because the barriers have blocked parts of the sidewalks at Chapman Avenue and Orangewood Avenue where people used to come and go.

If people living at the encampment cut holes in the fences with bolt cutters, Orange County Public Works employees repair it. For the elderly and disabled it is neither safe nor realistic to scale the fence or navigate the river to get to a steep, rocky embankment on the river’s west side, Diehl says.

“Children, people with severe disabilities, the elderly and others are deprived of food, water and access to restrooms,” said ACLU homelessness policy analyst Eve Garrow. “The county should take action to rectify this egregious violation of basic human rights.”

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Naturally, the county is claiming that they are not doing anything wrong and that the fence, put in place after the homeless community began growing there, is for ‘flood control.’

“The county is aware that there are homeless encampments in the project area. Flood control channels are not a safe place to live. Sign postings and in-person notifications about the project have been provided to those encamped along the county maintenance road,” the county said in a statement.

However, according to Diehl and the others who are imprisoned in the camp, police told them that they should move there to avoid citations for sleeping in public in the other parts of town.

What this case in Santa Ana illustrates is the state’s continued war on the right of people to exist. Every time a group homeless community finds a safe spot, located out of the way, they are targeted for removal, or, in this barbaric case — imprisonment.

Earlier this month, the Free Thought Project reported on another war being waged against the homeless population in California. Known as ‘The Promised Land,’ a group of homeless people in Oakland sought to improve their situation by creating a camp that would foster sobriety and help people to get jobs. It was located out of the way, under a series of overpasses. They had running water, were growing their own food, and did not allow drug or alcohol use within the camp.

As cops and officials allowed the other heroin riddled encampments to continue, they targeted the Promised Land for destruction. 

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Diehl now seeks an injunction ordering the county to provide him with “reasonable means of leaving the riverbed and being able to retrieve his property.”

Homeless Build Drug-Free Camp to Help Others Get Sober, Cops Promptly Tear it Down

Oakland, CA — Known as ‘The Promised Land’, a group of homeless people in Oakland sought to improve their situation by creating a camp that would foster sobriety and help people to get jobs. However, because the government constantly wages war on the people’s right to exist, this unique and inspiring place is no longer.

The Promised Land, also known as The Village, was a small camp under multiple layers of highway in a small and underused city park. Multiple homeless camps in Oakland, California are rife with heroin abuse and crime. However, the people who created this one, aimed to be different.

The camp’s organizer, Needa Bee, explained to CBS San Francisco that while only 16 people lived there, they were providing services to hundreds of other homeless people a week.

An aerial photo of some of the hard work that"s gone into #TheVillage. Join us at Marcus Garvey Park (36th/MLK) #homesnow #feedthepeople pic.twitter.com/FHpLwgYvwm

— The Village, Oakland (@VillageOakland) January 30, 2017

Bee was able to obtain portable toilets, hand washing stations, a hot shower, and even offered up basic medical care and food. According to Bee, the camp had strict rules against drinking and drug use in an effort to help others get sober to get jobs. The homeless members of the camp had even begun cultivating gardens to feed themselves.

But on Thursday, all that amazing progress came to a grinding and crushing halt.

#TheVillage get down to 36th and MLK #Oakland NOW dozens of cops trying to kick out residents of tiny home village. #HomesNow #resist pic.twitter.com/1kjLHf84KQ

— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) February 2, 2017

As CBS San Francisco reports, residents were abruptly awakened Thursday morning by dozens of police officers and public works employees who told them to leave with what they could and loaded what was left into garbage trucks. One person was arrested attempting to stop the process.

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During the week prior, city inspectors came through and cited the camp on 18 health and safety violations. Even their gardens were considered violations and their entire presence in the park — without a permit — was declared a “public nuisance,” city spokeswoman Karen Boyd said.

“This was a solution and it was viable. … The people of Oakland believed in it,” said Bee. “Now all those folks are going right back onto the streets.”

“I’m disgusted by the mayor and disgusted by the administrator,” she said. “We actually did something that they were unable to do.”

To add insult to destruction, several other homeless camps in the area remained untouched during Thursday’s crackdown — in spite of rampant  and widespread drug use and piles of trash.

As SF Gate reports:

Clearing the encampment at 36th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way was a striking change from how city staffers have approached other camps, including a line of tents and waste just outside the park — which they left untouched during Thursday morning’s shutdown — or another camp six blocks away, which Oakland leaders chose for the inaugural “Compassionate Communities” program.

At that encampment, at 35th and Magnolia streets, city crews added portable toilets, trash bins and needle containers, then hosed down the sidewalks and left. With the deployment of counselors and other services, the idea is to get everyone into housing by March 31, then replicate the program at other sites.

This camp was specifically targeted because they were inviting people in to help them.

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“There’s a difference between people living in tents, versus setting up an intentional, unsanctioned encampment,” Boyd said. “They were inviting and recruiting people to bring them into a park without the adequate infrastructure.”

Apparently, the large piles of trash, rampant heroin use, and unsanitary conditions at the other camps is considered ‘adequate infrastructure.’

During its brief but profound existence, there was not a single incident at the Village — yet they were still shut down. They even provided their own security at night to protect those who sought sanctuary.

“Before, it was so drug infested, you couldn’t even walk through here late at night,” Majid Ahmed, 44, said as he packed up his belongings at the camp, according to SF Gate. “Since we moved here, there has been zero crime and every one of us has got off drugs.”

But no more.

Oakland PD, DPW clearing "the Promise Land," homeless village set up 10 days ago under hwy. 16 slept here under condition they stay sober. pic.twitter.com/bO8fWvfpC9

— Kimberly Veklerov (@KVeklerov) February 2, 2017

Daniel Weaver, a resident in “the promised land,” said he has a part-time job but remains homeless. And, now that the Village has been torn down and thrown away, the likelihood of him keeping that job has greatly diminished.

“I need to be able to brush my teeth and take a shower and get to work. If I’m going to get my act together, I need a place,” he said.

A 60-year-old homeless woman, Nancy Mitchell was living on the street at one of the nearby ‘city-sanctioned’ camps with heroin use and trash. However, she explained to SF Gate that she came to the Village one day to get a cup of coffee and a plate of food, and decided to stay. Volunteers at the Village grabbed their dollies and helped move her in.

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“It was welcoming,” she said. “I never seen so much love in that park.”