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Indybay Feature

Weathering the Police Storm at City Hall

by Robert Norse (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
The SCPD appears to be using new harassment strategy at Peacecamp2010. The protest movement in its struggling to maintain a nightly presence at or across from City Hall faced repeated seizure of property, ticketing for new "offenses", and changing agreed-upon standards of behavior at the protest. Political signs, their table, and the chairs they sit on--earlier reclaimed by the protesters with difficulthy is now being seized again, eliminating their visible presence.
A small but persistent band of Peacecamp2010 [PC2010] demonstrators has gathered each night at City Hall, under near-blinding klieg lights powered by a smelly noisy generator, to defy the City's anti-homeless 11 PM - 8:30 AM Sleeping Ban.

In response, City police have escalated from harassment wake-up's and ticketing threats.

They moved beyond infraction citations under MC 6.36 (the Camping Ordinance which includes the Sleeping, Blanket, and Camping Bans) and threats to arrest if the protesters dare to sleep, cover up, or "encamp" a second successive night. They've tried the enforcement "strategy" used at the County Building last month-- misdemeanor tickets and arrests under the sweeping and selectively enforced "anti-lodging" state penal code 647e.

They've set up glaring lights on a platform installed in a parking spot in front of the City Hall entrance, complete with a generator spewing toxic fumes and making ordinary conversation problematic. They've rushed through without public comment an administrative edict by Parks and Rec boss Shoemaker making any protest or presence at City Hall after 10 PM a "trespass" offense--even though City Hall is public property, traditionally open to the public.

They've confiscated political signs, tables, chairs, and personal survival gear without any citations, making the property difficult to retrieve and the retriever liable to an "unattended property" citation, even though the property itself was claimed--and the claim ignored by harassing police. They've closed down the police lobby and shut down property claim times, stonewalling those who marched to the station on August 24 in search of their stolen stuff.

Protesters have moved from the City Hall grass, to the red bricks, to the front area of City Hall, to the library frontage across the street, then to the sidewalk--all under pressure from police to vacate a new area, suddenly declared "illegal".

In addition to stepping up seizures of signs, tables, and property Two days after some protest property was successfully reclaimed by "Castaway" Crow, the police confiscated and removed the chairs, table, signs, and blankets. They had all been moved to the sidewalk to get them out of the "No Trespassing" zone, and were carefully arrayed to leave a passage free on the sidewalk. Still "Get it Done" Gary received a new category of ticket-- "blocking the sidewalk".

The next night, apparently dazzled by rhetorical points made by the ever-loquacious "Ocean" police skipped citing him, only to return the night after to ticket him for "trespass" because one of his signs impinged on the red brick "closed after 10 PM" area. "Looks like my citation collection is almost complete," noted Gary. "I seem to be collecting at least one of each."

Last night Gary, one of the first protesters arrested and one of those there the longest, placed his sleeping bag in a well-lighted parking spot In front of Gary was the sputtering portable generator fueling the Klieg lights; behind him, attorney-activist Ed Frey's white pick-up truck used to haul, park, and service the only bathroom facility open after midnight in Santa Cruz--the Protest Portapotty. "What about the toxic fumes from the generator three feet away?" I asked. "Got to," he replied, "It's the only safe spot in the where approaching cars won't inadvertently park on top of you."

Will protesters get the same right to occupy space as vehicles? Not the case in public parking lots down town where Vice-Mayor Coonerty's Parking Lot Panic law made it illegal to assemble, socialize, or even sit in your vehicle. Watch this site for updates.

City Manager Martin Bernal may have trotted out a new illegitimate City strategy that ignores and crushes First Amendment rights because simple ticketing under the Camping Ordinance and the state Lodging law may not pass muster because of the acknowledged absence of walk-in emergency shelter from April 15 to November 15. Hence we we see new "trespassing" and "blocking the sidewalk" citations, abusive and repeated seizures of unmistakably First Amendment protected signs as well as vital homeless survival gear, and false inflammatory charges of criminal behavior at the site ("child molesting") without any factual back-up.

Meanwhile "Nuff Said" Nancy McCradie, a decades-long Sleeping Ban survivor and fighter from Santa Barbara, suggests fighting 647e by sleeping on top of bedding since that law specifies "in" not "on" in its wording.

Judith Shearer of Free Speech Radio News came down to Santa Cruz last week and created a radio segment being broadcast nationally about Peacecamp2010 and broadcast on KPFA radio. Hear it archived at http://www.fsrn.org/audio/protest-over-homeless-rights-brings-issue-santa-cruz%E2%80%99s-city-hall/7391 .

Locally Bathrobespierre's Broadsides, the Free Radio Santa Cruz twice-weekly show, continues to archive developments at Peacecamp2010 at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/brb-descriptions.html . I've answered a local hit piece against Ed Frey in the Santa Cruz Weekly at http://news.santacruz.com/2010/08/24/santa_cruz_attorney_takes_up_plight_of_the_homeless .

And the Sentinel has moved from inflammatory SCPD press releases to complete silence as police ramp up the pressure against poor people fighting an unjust law in a very hard economic time.

Media blackout.
§Support PeaceCamp 2010
by HUFF (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
pc_2-up.pdf_600_.jpg
Support PeaceCamp 2010 at City Hall
Meetings Nightly 8:15 PM

Wanted:
Food, Blankets,Activists,Volunteers, Legal Help,
Computer and Website Workers, & Supporters
§Support PeaceCamp 2010 (2)
by HUFF (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
peacecamp2.pdf_600_.jpg
Support PeaceCamp 2010

Where? On Center St. Between Church and Locust St.
When? Protest by Day, Sleep or Vigil at Night until the Ban is lifted
Why? Restore the Right to Sleep-Not Anywhere & Everywhere, but Somewhere
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by nuff said, not nancy
Santa Cruz City Council and SCPD, supported by the Sentinel, grossly violate peoples' basic human need to sleep.
by Piffle
"The smelly generator". "the toxic fumes".

...if those same gas fumes were running a heater to keep the protesters warm and snug at night, would Robert be complaining with the same exaggerated descriptors?

The "protest" was, as of noon today, 2 guys arguing with each other and sharing a bottle on the bench in front of the library across from City Hall.

Keep it Real.
by Hyperbole Horse
Give it a rest Robert. Seriously. No one gives a flying fuck about this anymore. This is just pointless, slobbery yammering now.

You are such a drama queen. Honestly.
by Reggie Wallstopper
I'm all for anything that drives more bums away from the city. Keep up the good work, SCPD!
by revolution2010
Disregard the negativity coming from the right-wingers and TBSC crowd here. Thank you for bringing these issues to light (heaven knows, the local corporate media won't do it, in particular, the always right-leaning Sentinel).

Keep up the good fight and know that there are a hell of a lot of us who DO give a damn about the rights of everyone *including* homeless and poor people.

by from Center St.
The lights were gone tonight. Maybe the city decided to move the bright portable lights because the cops plan to ticket people for sleeping in the gutter.
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