St. Petersburg Police Slash Tents Of Homeless (FlorDuh...

http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB2L5YK5XE.html

St. Petersburg Police Slash Tents Of Homeless

By STEPHEN THOMPSONand ROD CHALLENGER The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 20, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - A homeless man was lying down in his tent across the street from a soup kitchen Friday when two police officers yanked open the tent's flap and shouted, "Get up. Get out of there."

Then, the man said, the officers dragged him outside and slashed the tent's dome with knives.

..cut..

A cat-and-mouse game between the city and its burgeoning homeless population took on a confrontational tone Friday as about two dozen officers swooped down on 15th Street North and either confiscated or destroyed a dozen tents in which homeless people had been living.

..more at link....

I will be so glad to put this state in my rear view mirror..... :grr:

never ends because people never change.

They are just bullies and thugs. Paid to inflict more pain on the unfortunate.

And they never ever change.

:(

Is it any wonder this is happening after Katrina? After all those poor people died? After cities like Las Vegas criminalize feeding poor people in public parks?

Slash their tents.

I can understand the idea behind 'blight', but where do the city officials expect these people to go? Social services are gutted and the charities cant keep up...

whats next, conservative "victorian" values work houses?

Here in Sarasota Florida, that received the meanest city in the country award for the way they treat the homeless, we have a workhouse program. It's called Salvation Army. It costs $10 dollars per night to stay in a shelter with the lights on all night and a buck for a towel. Because there is so much building going on, if a shelter dweller is healthy they can go to work on a construction crew as a day laborer at a very low rate of pay.

The crime rate by homeless is spiking as people rush from the cold cities to enjoy the Florida sun. When they arrive they find housing too expensive and day labor too low paying to exist. Then they end up at the Salvation Army shelter where homeless predators hunt weaker homeless people.
Sorry, I get carried away about this deadly serious problem.

:wtf:

Just can't fathom myself why a person would feel the need to ruin what little a person less well off has. Seems akin to those that torture and kill small animals or are these the same people only grown?

Politicians and cops are the same in this way, if you WANT to be one, you should be disqualified from the job.

I could not have said it better.

and I hope to god when you need one they are there for you regardless of your opinion of them. Good cops don't make the news.

It would be very hard to be a member of this board as much as they get criticized. Unfortunately most of the criticism is valid. The police that make the news are more often acting badly.

I know they can't be all bad and we do rely on them for our safety, we should do a better job of weeding them out before we give them a gun and set them loose.

the "dark side".

I left with my Pride Integrity and Guts (PIG), and my humanity and compassion still intact. Good cops like good politicians have a short shelf life and should never serve more than a few years.

A friend of a friend got out . . . evidently he feels the same way.

I've run across some cops that are clearly trying to be fair.

But, from the harassment I've witnessed, they are in the clear minority.

--OrangeCat

it's a necessary profession, but wallowing in such dirt and corruption of society is only going to end up intoxicating one's soul. there is only so much time someone can withstand that without PTSD kicking in and having the person act out. it often comes out as the exact same evil they are guarding against, too.

ps: i say everyone should serve a few years in retail to learn civility and patience. i wonder if the same could be said about politicians and police? should everyone serve a minimum sentence to realize how fast power corrupts and how ugly the world can be?

Good cops wouldn't do crap like this.

there are good cops out there. I owe my life to a Chicago cop. But like I said initially, they are the minority.

Cities all over the country are avoiding the problem of homelessness. It will bite them in the ass. To bad many people will be hurt.

at crippled dogs.

Fresno which states that police cannot destroy the posessions of the homeless.

I realize that rulings in Fresno are not enforceable in Florida, but quite often those kinds of rulings do travel.

Will the ACLU file suit against the St. Petersburg PD for this?

I certainly hope so.

(Not all cities in Florida treat their homeless this badly. Key West has some very basic shelters in which the homeless can stay indefinitely (although it doesn't look like there is any room for possessions in the shelters). Other cities are trying to find ways to balance the needs of the homeless against the needs of the community.

But the problems do become overwhelming when there are so damned many people who have fallen off the cliff of barely making it to being homeless. And many of the homeless are working homeless. They have jobs but are not paid enough to have homes other than tents pitched on land they do not own.

been driven off the cliff by the schemes of credit card companies. You know, the "money lenders".

warning sign that capitalism will not "work" for the general population in a global marketplace. Capitalism works for the capitalist (the "moneyed" people), and was OK in the past with lots of factory jobs creating a large middle class. But if you look at most of the world with the tiny population of very rich, very small middle class and huge underclass of desperately poor you can see what is in store for America. We MUST change the entire world slightly or America dramatically.

the CCC helped keep people alive here in the plains states and Ozarks. Work programs literally saved lives.

I get so pissed when people diss the New Deal. They don't know their history, and they are too lazy to care. As long as nobody takes away all their stuff, they don't have to worry about it.

Socialism can work.

response to homelessness! Disgusting! :puke:

Sort of like O'Leilly saying Sean Hornbeck stayed gone 4 years cuz he was enjoying himself!

This infuriates me! :grr:

Shameful.

their country as soldiers they would serve us better?

I believe he ran Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaign against Lawton Chiles, if it's the same guy.

The Bush family sure does have some gleaming political connections around the country, doesn't it?

http://www.stpete.org/mayor.htm

email: mayor@stpete.org

I just flayed his sorry ass.

(Let's hope the internet tubes are fillin' up.)

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

& the police chief.

Class action suit against the police, the mayor, and the city council.

These assholes need to be made so bereft of money that they have to live in tents . . . at the mercy of thugs.

What a fucked up country.

Worshipers of Paul, not Christ, could never be bothered by the sights of those less fortunate than themselves.

It would just undermine all their preconceived notions about their supposed god given success.

Sounds like plain old vandalism to me... and they should be charged with such.

they should be required to live in a tent for the next year. Also, they should be required to replace those folks tents, or better yet, those homeless folk should be allowed to stay in their houses.

outrage over anyone (let alone police officers) destroying a homeless person's tent. Just what does this country stand for???? :cry:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/
They Live (1988)

most homeless people are not a threat to deserve this. However, I am dismayed that some people on here think giving them a job is a bad thing...

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2007/1/20/216734.html#

New Tent City survives despite code objections
Saturday, January 20, 2007

Despite attempts by police and fire officials, Tent City's latest edition is alive and well.

Fire code violations prompted Friday's raid of two homeless camps, according to St. Petersburg police.

Officers seized more than 20 tents, slicing several of them with knives, citing the code violations. St. Petersburg Fire Rescue added that people were smoking and cooking in their tents, that the tents were to close together, blocking public right of ways and lacking fire extinguishers. Police also said the tent dwellers failed to obtain permits.

But Friday evening after the code issues came to light, supplies were delivered to the homeless from the public. People showed up with new tents, fire extinguishers, no smoking signs and portable toilets.

(more)

Here's hoping someone slipped them an old video camera from spring cleaning for the next time these cops come around.

the homeless people?

Fucking A! :grr::grr::grr:

have the time money or energy to deal with this

Its the 1930's agains

www.stpeteforpeace.org


http://scpeg.org/


http://scpeg.org/?q=node/11

We will be out at Baywalk. Usually we are protesting the war, but this will most likely turn into a special protest.

slashing it is like tearing somebody's house down and throwing them out in the street IN THE WINTER because they didn't have enough smoke detectors.

It's very obvious that the "fire code violations" were a convenient excuse, as I'm sure it's much more dangerous to be sleeping outdoors in a cold winter rain without shelter than it is to be cooking something while warm and sheltered inside a tent...

What is the city thinking, slash their tents and they'll go rent an apartment instead??

Why on earth can't the people who become homeless be allowed to live in their own country without someone making things worse than they all ready are ?

Man , these are people not garbage who deserve to be tossed out .

There are so many people , most I would imagine who never made the choice to live on the streets .

The way things are going in this country there will be many more homeless . With all the spare land there is cannot these people be allowed to live off the land ?

I recall a documentary about the homeless living in NYC underground somewhere by subways who had build a small community out of old wood and all sorts of junk but they had pride and tried to survive . Then someone got them small apartments and they were so happy just to be people with a real home then they were tossed out of these .

You know america should hang it's ugly head in shame , claiming to be bible followers and yet they piss on the poor .

It's so nice to have a society sick with money and consumed by greed that there is not one speck of land that is not owned by someone . Are there no commons anylonger ? This sort of thing makes me sick to hear .

Anyone can end up homeless for any reason so they should think long and hard before they judge others so harshly .

Too bad they're left without shelter in the winter... the nazis killed 500,000
of saint petersburg, seems tragedy comes with the name.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2697737

:kick: