The city of St Petersburg has declared the homeless encampment under I-375 to be a fire hazard. In an effort to save all of you from any possible harm, the city ordered police to remove the tents on Friday. In cases where the occupants refused to leave their tents, police slashed the temporary homes to remove the occupant and confiscated the tents.
Of course, homeless advocates had replaced the tents within mere hours, and also addressed some of the concerns about fire hazard, but the interesting part of this story has been the reaction of the St Pete Police officers. After removing one man from his tent the officer asked of him,
‘Are you all right?’”
Which at the time must have seemed to be a bad joke or a taunt. It turns out that the mood of the Police is far less forgiving to city leaders that sent them on this mission than to the homeless people themselves. LEOAffairs.com has a thread going showing a less hostile side of the Police than news reports have given us.
example:
Wait just a minute! If I hadn’t seen this on TV myself, I would have bet $100 someone made this up…. police officers were sent with knives to cut up tents???
Are you guys kidding me? You’re cutting up the homeless people’s tents? Destroying evidence of a supposed crime or just destroying their personal property?
Did the chief or staff actually authorize this course of action??? Incredible! – Tampa Bay LEO
I’m embarrassed. – Tent caterpillar
The incident is bad enough but the attitude of the Police indicates a crisis of leadership may be occurring at City Hall in St Pete that needs to be addressed quickly. Today the camp under I-375 and about half a block from St Anthony’s Hospital is back to normal I guess, about twenty tents, 30-40 people and no police presence were noted at about 8pm last night. Maybe the city leadership needs to stop and take a breath and realize that if even the police feel their policies against the homeless camp are excessive they should rethink the entire endeavor and figure out another way to help these people off the streets?
Gamzu
3 years ago
Why don’t we just send Rachel* and her boyfriend down there to film a movie.
They could slash the tents and punch the homeless in the face for half the cost.
dcdave
3 years ago
gamzu, rotflmao
Tom
3 years ago
I was shocked as I watched the news last Friday. I saw police with boxcutters destroy the tents of homeless residents.
Try to imagine what is felt like to look up and see a knife blade slash through your tent. Just days after the brutal murders of two homeless men.
This was an action that I might expect to see in Communist China but not in my beloved Saint Petersburg.
The city said that the tents were unsafe because they were too close together and too close to the road. This may have been a fire hazard and they could have been hit by a car.
I agree, but I don’t see any logic in Mayor Baker’s “solution”. It is merely an excuse to punish the poor for trying to survive. Homeless advocates have been trying to respond to safety issues by giving out fire extinguishers. Their camp behind a fence provided the safety that the city now says is needed. So in forcing the homeless out of the fenced in camp the city has caused these safety problems.
At least motorists could see the tents near the street. What protection does a person have when they are on the ground without a tent? They could have been asked to move their tents to a safer position.
The tent city was not a good solution but at least they were behind a fence and had a small amount of security. Baker forced them to move to the street where two were just murdered.
It seems that they were not suffering enough. Take away their tents and let them suffer in the cold and rain. Shame on this city.
God will judge us by how we treat the least among us.
I am a police department volunteer and it broke my heart to see officers forced to destroy the property of these poor souls. We have great officers but terrible leadership. We don’t have enough officers in my high crime Southside neighborhood but there are always enough for political stunts.
Here are a few links:
http://sticksoffire.com/2007/01/18/no-homeless-people-were-harmed-during-this-post/
And this: http://www.flapolitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1411
http://www.tampablab.com/post/st-petersburg-police-use-boxcutters-to-destroy-tents-of-homeless/
John
3 years ago
I don’t want to get into partisanship but I thought a mayor and a city was supposed to care about the welfare of it’s citizens. If there is a large camp of homeless in St. Petersburg with visible tents — the tents aren’t the problem, it’s the city services.
The St. Pete Police don’t surprise me with their attitude… These are the guys that constantly cause fire for their actions.
The state of St. Petersburg is atrocious with the polarization of the haves and have-nots. And while Rick Baker and other former mayors will get kudos for what they have done to get such investment in the city, it hasn’t been much if they don’t oversee the welfare and quality of life of it’s residents — that includes the homeless.
Autopsy IV
3 years ago
you know. if I treated my dog so poorly they would put me in jail.
voxpopuli
3 years ago
It would be interesting to see what would happen in Tampa. Working on solving this problem for HUNDREDS of years and this is the best that Baker can do? It’s scary.
Anonymous
3 years ago
Raiding BushVilles is NOT avocating Public Safety
In the “Blame the Poor” culture fostered by the worst of any plutocratic oligarchies, the unfortunates in society are subjected to harassment and random violence. Recently, police and firemen in St. Petersburg, Florida, under the direction of mayor Rick Baker, destroyed the shelters of homeless people who were clustered together for safety after the brutal murders of two of their own.
We don’t like seeing failed policy that is producing these BushVille tent-cities. We don’t like seeing evidence that this American Dream is falling apart due to the selling out of our republic by a bunch of rich crooks. It’s bad enough that our corrupt representatives were complicit over the past generation in degrading our proud economy into this incipient squalor.
Once, there was a homeless peace-activist in the Middle East. His name was Jesus. He said,
“Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.” (Matt 25:40 for you professed followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ)
I would urge those who are entrusted by the public to effectively mitigate the problems in our society, to act in the spirit of that homeless peace-activist of ancient times, and channel some of that “faith-based” money we give you in the form of taxes, to build and equip adequate public shelters for those who find themselves on the street without a home, in our communities.
To those in public office who would sell their influence to would-be corporate feudal-lords at the expense of the rest of us, Knock it Off.
Some of our homeless are from out of town. We should get some federal aid in building our new shelters.
http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2007/01/city_raids_two_.html
tampabaymuse
3 years ago
Rick Baker has blinders on. Instead of working on a viable solution on the homeless problem in St. Pete, he has aggravated the situation. I guess in his opinion it is better to have them just sleep on the sidewalks on Central Ave and the alleys.
btw, I question the legality of the police destroying personal property, ie cutting up tents with box cutters. If I went and cut up your tent with a box cutter you sure the hell would be calling the police. IMHO, this was a terrorist act to intimidate the homeless.
jerry smith
2 years ago
i think homeland security should be called in because i think we have been invaded.we are not free anymore