Protester arrested in St. Petersburg, FL, Dec. 22, 2006
WATCH VIDEO (Video courtesy of Len Schmiege) |
St.
Petersburg---On Friday, December 22, St. Pete for Peace, Suncoast Peace
Education Group, St. Pete Food Not Bombs, and a myriad of other peace
and social justice organizations participated in the second in a series
of protests hosted by The Refuge. The protests are being held to target
the lack of movement around providing shelter and services for St.
Pete’s swelling homeless population.
The coalition of
groups are demanding, among other things, that the city make several
public restroom facilities accessible 24/7. Since public urination is
against the law, and since it is unlikely the Starbucks (or any local
business in the downtown area), will throw open their bathroom doors to
the homeless, it would seem a simple, humane and common-sense solution
to one of the more visible complaints about the homeless. Like the
other simple, humane and common sense solutions proposed by the
coalition, the city has chosen to ignore it.
And, in an ironic
twist, a protester was, himself, arrested for attempting to use the
public restroom inside the Baywalk shopping plaza. The official charge
was trespassing.
The arrested
protester had received a trespass warning well over a year ago during
St. Pete for Peace’s battle against the city and Sembler
Corporation for the use of the public sidewalk in front of Baywalk
where their anti-war weekly vigils have been held since the inception
of the war in Iraq. It is our understanding that the warning notice
expired after a year, and in fact, the individual in question had asked
Baywalk Security, over three weeks ago, if he was once again allowed on
the premises and was told “yes.”
Since then, he has
been allowed in the complex on at least three occasions without
incident. Why was December 22nd any different?
One can only
speculate, but it must be assumed that the arrest has some connection
to the fact that before the event was suspended due to weather
conditions, the original plan had been to join the homeless for a
sleep-out in front of Sembler’s multi-million dollar mall. It
would appear that the city feels more threatened by homeless people
than it does by anti-war protesters.
The protester was
lead away in handcuffs and placed in a police transport van with one
other individual who, earlier in the evening, had tossed a bottle off
the second floor balcony of the complex in the general direction of the
protest below. He was kept in the transport for several hours, and at
one point was told the transport vehicle would not take him to the
station so he could be released on bond until it “was
full.” It is interesting to note that the place the police chose
to park the vehicle, hoping to “fill it”, was next to a
homeless encampment near the St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen.
The protester was released at 5 A.M. this morning.
It would appear
that St. Pete’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness should more
aptly be called the War on the Homeless. Earlier this week, one
homeless sweep resulted in the arrest of seventeen homeless persons,
and another sweep was narrowly averted when Refuge volunteers were
alerted that the police had arrived at the homeless encampment by St.
Vincent’s with a dump truck and a bulldozer. It was deterred by
the presence of volunteers with video cameras.
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