City's Handling of Homeless People

[IfasehunReincarnated]

City's Handling of Homeless People Around Outdoor Event Is Challenged
Jeremy Kohler
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
September 23, 2004

In the days just before Fair St. Louis, city jail workers fretted over where to fit the disorderlies whom police typically round up whenever St. Louis hosts a large outdoor event where lots of beer is served.

An order from Administrative Municipal Judge Margaret Walsh provided relief. It said that people arrested over that weekend for ordinance violations -- such as public drinking -- could be let go after eight hours of picking up trash downtown. She set an October court date.

The city's wheels of justice were on cruise control, then, by the time the fireworks lighted the skies over the Gateway Arch.

Crimes were punished that had not yet been alleged; people were sentenced who had not yet been arrested. Guilt or innocence would be argued in three months, but downtown would be litter-free by holiday's end.

All the system lacked were some offenders.

In a federal lawsuit heard in recent days in St. Louis, a group of civil rights lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that St. Louis police found those offenders that weekend by sweeping the homeless from downtown.

The lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge E. Richard Webber that police had arrested dozens of homeless people without any other cause than the beautification of downtown and the comfort of fairgoers.

The lawyers told Webber that they were particularly galled by the charge issued to many of the homeless defendants: drinking in public. How many thousands of fair visitors drank downtown with impunity, they asked.

They argued that their clients were later shunted into the hands of the Community Improvement District, a nonprofit organization owned by area businesses to promote and beautify downtown, for which they worked as slaves picking up trash without pay. None of them saw a judge first.

The first name on the suit is Chad Johnson, 32. He was among 23 people that weekend who won liberty by wearing yellow vests and picking up litter in a downtown park.

Johnson testified that he had agreed to litter detail only because he did not want to stay in jail and miss a shift at his new job. The whole thing felt "bogus," he said.

The homeless plaintiffs are asking Webber to halt the police from removing them from the streets, where many of them said they live and work.

The police deny the accusations.

"It's simply not truthful," police Chief Joe Mokwa said in an interview this week. "The department has not done anything to prohibit the homeless from being downtown."

On the contrary, Mokwa said, most officers have been trained to interact with the homeless with sensitivity.

"We try to treat these people with dignity," he said.

The federal suit has put a spotlight on how the city has tried to cure itself of two of its most serious ills: vagrancy and street crime.

Throughout a two-day hearing that ended Monday, Webber allowed witnesses to speak at length about what they portrayed as a pattern of harassment by police. He repeatedly commended their behavior in court.

Webber is expected to rule next week at the earliest.

A private court

Among the many issues he will examine is the partnership between police, courts and businesses to improve the quality of life downtown.

Plaintiffs in the case call it a uncaring conspiracy between public and private to remove the homeless.

Webber's is not the only court in town wrestling with the issue. In a separate suit in St. Louis Circuit Court, the same lawyers are challenging the legality of a so-called "community court," under Walsh's supervision, that quietly adjudicates charges like those issued during Fair St. Louis.

Unlike most courts, the Downtown Community Court is funded not by taxpayers, but by a private, nonprofit corporation: The Downtown St. Louis Partnership.

That's a sister organization to the Community Improvement District, the same group that took custody of the homeless inmates on Independence Day. The organizations share the same offices and have the same president, Jim Cloar. Among the partnership's members is Pulitzer Inc., which owns this newspaper.

A court system funded entirely by businesses? That's an "unconstitutional and unlawful tribunal without jurisdiction," the suit claims.

The city's response: The community court's funds could be considered public because the partnership's members are, essentially, taxed to support it.

Until midsummer, the community court occupied one of the five divisions in the city's municipal court, 1430 Olive Street. After the legal challenge, the city moved community court cases to the municipal court's other four divisions. The partnership's funding, however, has not changed.

Quality of life

The community court was set up in 2001 to provide "swift and predictable" justice for panhandlers, shoplifters, trespassers, and those who drink or urinate in public. Similar courts thrive in dozens of U.S. cities, from New York to San Francisco.

The movement espouses two goals: reducing irksome street crime and treating underlying problems, such as mental illness, that lead to vagrancy.

What sets St. Louis' community court apart from most others is its private funding. The partnership pays the city about $187,000 a year, which helps pay the salary of a judge, a prosecutor, a marshal, a clerk and other positions. Its money also buys use of a handful of jail cells in the St. Louis Justice Center.

The partnership agreed to pay the court's bills because many "quality-of-life" crimes were bogging down the courts, Cloar said. The partnership does not control the court, he said.

Petty crime "really hampers the ability of downtown to be a place for everyone," he said.

Walsh, who presides over the municipal court division, said the notion was "insulting" that downtown businesses had some influence in the community court.

"You really want to know how the city treats homeless people, come to my court every Thursday at 11 o'clock," she said. "I'm on a first-name basis with half the homeless people in this city. And I talk to them, and I help them find a place to get meals."

Confusion

Beyond the debate of whether police are harassing the homeless and whether a private entity can pay for a whole legal system, confusion remains.

How did nearly two dozen people who weren't convicted of crimes end up being forced to pick up trash while the rest of the city partied under the Arch?

Cloar says it was a mistake. The Community Improvement District assumed the inmates they were picking up at the jail had been sentenced. Its workers simply received a list of people from the probation and parole workers at the jail and took those people to the park.

"This has been a very complex deal," Cloar said. "We have a pretty complicated form of government here, as you know."

The city's Office of Public Safety, which runs the jails, washes its hands, as well.

"Neither the police nor the CID played any role in determining the outcome," said a statement faxed to the Post-Dispatch by public safety spokesman Pat Maloney. "Corrections officers acted solely based on Judge Walsh's order."

Walsh maintains that she never ordered anyone to do community service. The order says people "may" be released, she said.

"Do you hear the word 'may'?" she said. "Do you hear the word 'may' in there? May. May be released. It's an implementing order allowing release on a summons. The word may. It's not a shall, it's not a must. It's a may."

In some cases it might be appropriate to assign community service, she said. Hers wasn't meant to be a blanket order, she said.

Said Walsh: "The plaintiffs are saying I did something. The police are saying I did something. I've never seen anybody arrested on that order. I've never seen an arraignment on the order. I don't know what anybody did with the order. I don't know who was arrested. I don't know who was charged. I don't know anything."

[Im The Truth]

That's too bad, in Atlanta it's illegal to feed the homeless.

[IfasehunReincarnated]

illegal? i wish somebody would tell me who i could feed.