Current Events > ridiculous murder rate? time to waste resources stopping 'homeless feeding'!

(+) Yeah! (+)

So my city of Little Rock, Arkansas has had about 45 murders this year which would put us on track to having a homicide rate similar to cities like Chicago, Memphis, and Oakland even if no one else gets killed this year. The city leadership has consistently complained this is largely because they have not had any success in recruiting enough police officers to fill their vacancies, leading to under-policing.

However, the city leadership has also been trying to create an ordinance that essentially makes it illegal to feed homeless persons in public. The ordinance was pitched as a 'solution' to large groups of people using park facilities and leaving a mess behind. However, many activists for the homeless community said that it would impede their ability to feed homeless people else where.

This might not have been true. But it seems like it is:

https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2017/08/12/little-rock-police-reportedly-crack-down-on-homeless-feeding-program

I have just had a very disturbing phone call that Little Rock Police have started harassing homeless who are at From His Throne Ministry for an evening meal. Co-Pastor Melody Malat received a call this afternoon from Officer Watson, was told that the homeless there were an eyesore, that the homeless should just be bussed out to Jericho Way or the Compassion Center, and that they want Pastor Joe and Melody to meet with them next week. Later this evening when Joe and Melody opened the church for the evening meal, police cars were there harassing anyone standing outside the church, telling Melody and Joe that they had to remove people from the sidewalk, and pulling into the church parking lot in back to tell one of the guys that he could not be there in his car. Even after the meal when people were just there cleaning up, they went outside to smoke, and police informed them they could not be outside. To top this off, Melody said that there is now a police camera installed across the street pointed at the From His Throne church. THIS IS HARASSMENT! This is the city that is voting to join the International Compassionate City program! This is not acceptable! Looks like the compassionate city has a new initiative started. Aaron Reddin have you heard about this?

so basically the cops wasted 6 patrols worth of people to harass a church about feeding homeless people. meanwhile, someone else got killed over the weekend.

I'm pretty salty, CE
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without proudclad here to call church folks virtue signallers these topics aren't as fun
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Feeding the homeless is in all fairness a waste of time,money,resources so I'm with the cops.

BlueLivesMatter.
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Shadowstrike007 posted...

Feeding the homeless is in all fairness a waste of time,money,resources so I'm with the cops.

BlueLivesMatter.

I rather the church pay for it than taxes. Making feeding the homeless illegal sounds like such a waste of time.
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It's because businesses in the area don't like homeless people being downtown
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Webmaster4531 posted...

Shadowstrike007 posted...

Feeding the homeless is in all fairness a waste of time,money,resources so I'm with the cops.

BlueLivesMatter.

I rather the church pay for it than taxes. Making feeding the homeless illegal sounds like such a waste of time.

Time yes but not money and resources. Where I'm from we are very anti-homeless in my city (as it should be they scare off customers). The issue at large is a large majority are there because they choose to be. Drugs or drinking or mental illness (that one we should try and fix since it's not a choice.)
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Shadowstrike007 posted...

Feeding the homeless is in all fairness a waste of time,money,resources

Is it usually the job of the police to stop people who are wasting their own time,money, and resources?
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Shadowstrike007 posted...

Time yes but not money and resources.

The first post clearly says there's a police shortage. Cops wasting time is undeniably wasted pay and wasted human resources.
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Anteaterking posted...

Shadowstrike007 posted...

Feeding the homeless is in all fairness a waste of time,money,resources

Is it usually the job of the police to stop people who are wasting their own time,money, and resources?

Yes it depends on the situation and location. As the article states these homeless were loitering which here is illegal.
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Webmaster4531 posted...

Shadowstrike007 posted...

Time yes but not money and resources.

The first post clearly says there's a police shortage. Cops wasting time is undeniably wasted pay and wasted human resources.

Cops were doing their job as it says eyesore to the community which means businesses most likely called the police which I also have to occasionally do.

Why is this difficult for you guys? Can't have bums around not shopping or anything of the like in front of a business.
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Webmaster4531 posted...

Shadowstrike007 posted...

Time yes but not money and resources.

The first post clearly says there's a police shortage. Cops wasting time is undeniably wasted pay and wasted human resources.

Exactly, and someone apparently got killed in that time too. The cops have far more important things to do but don't

The apparently lack people and training
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itachi15243 posted...

Exactly, and someone apparently got killed in that time too.

2 people have been murdered since then, actually
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BettyB0op08 posted...

I thought Chicago had that amount per month.

Rate means per capita
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Crime and murder often coincide with the homeless population.
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https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2017/08/16/newspaper-shines-light-on-little-rocks-homeless-removal-program

The D-G reporting, using FOI material, indicates that a police force short dozens of officers and facing a sharp jump in violent crime, has devoted a violent crime unit and now a group of overtime officers to cracking down on homeless at several locations, particularly From His Throne, which has become the site of an evening feeding program as an alternative to a parking lot program ended by Broadway Bridge construction.

surely this is the best use of city resources!
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Doesn't Chicago have one of the highest police per capita?

I'm not sure if more police will necessarily stop murders from happening instead of just catching the murderer after the fact...if that.
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Balrog0 posted...

without proudclad here to call church folks virtue signallers these topics aren't as fun

On the contrary I think his take here would be pointing out how this is a misuse of tax money so we should end government entirely
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Don't feed the homeless or interact with them. Just like when you go to the park.
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Skasa posted...

Don't feed the homeless or interact with them. Just like when you go to the park.

Suspended
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Antifar posted...

Balrog0 posted...

without proudclad here to call church folks virtue signallers these topics aren't as fun

On the contrary I think his take here would be pointing out how this is a misuse of tax money so we should end government entirely

I wasn't being hypothetical, I've posted about this topic a few times over the past few months and he has always talked about how being for these "feedings" is a form of virtue signalling and how politicians love to virtue signal about the homeless without offering up real solutions to the problem
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So...why couldn't they hold the function inside the church rather than on the sidewalk
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UnhndredDescole posted...

That's very true

Except none of the politicians here are doing that, just people of the church who work with the homeless

Mal_Fet posted...

So...why couldn't they hold the function inside the church rather than on the sidewalk

They did, the line just went into the sidewalk.

Very libertarian question, though! Why should we let people use the street as an access point to private establishments???
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Balrog0 posted...

They did, the line just went into the sidewalk.

Very libertarian question, though! Why should we let people use the street as an access point to private establishments???

The thing about public property is that you aren't allowed to monopolize it. It's the same reason why stores aren't allowed to plant their signs on sidewalks.

And yes, it is a libertarian issue. Public property is for everybody, and sidewalks are for walking. If you obstruct the public from walking on the sidewalk they pay for with their taxes, then that's a problem.
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classic Mal, flip flopping between libertarian and authoritarian whenever he feels like virtue signaling
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Focus on the murder rate and certain communities call it racist.

Mal_Fet posted...

And yes, it is a libertarian issue. Public property is for everybody, and sidewalks are for walking. If you obstruct the public from walking on the sidewalk they pay for with their taxes, then that's a problem.

lines going out into common property are like the most common thing ever and there's no indication it impeded anyone lol

NepGear462 posted...

Focus on the murder rate and certain communities call it racist.

depends on how you frame it
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DawnKeyOaty posted...

classic Mal, flip flopping between libertarian and authoritarian whenever he feels like virtue signaling

It's not authoritarian to say you shouldn't be allowed to impede public property.

Balrog0 posted...

lines going out into common property are like the most common thing ever

And that changes what
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Mal_Fet posted...

It's not authoritarian to say you shouldn't be allowed to impede public property.

it is authoritarian to imply that a common use of public property is some how impeding it

Mal_Fet posted...

And that changes what

Well, since everyone is allowed to use public spaces, and people commonly use it for standing while waiting to get into an establishment without being harassed, I would say we could infer that there isn't anything that impedes the public good from the public using it to queue up to use a private space.

What is your argument that it's a problem?
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actually the only place that I know of that has made standing still in a public sidewalk illegal was NYC trying to do it in times square about a decade ago

http://reason.com/blog/2007/10/19/standing-in-the-place-where-he
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Balrog0 posted...

it is authoritarian to imply that a common use of public property is some how impeding it

Sidewalks are for walking, not to facilitate private use. With your logic, you can defend people who block traffic.

"What? Roads are public property, right? So I'm totally allowed to stand in the middle of it and keep cars from moving!"
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Mal_Fet posted...

Sidewalks are for walking, not to facilitate private use. With your logic, you can defend people who block traffic.

"What? Roads are public property, right? So I'm totally allowed to stand in the middle of it and keep cars from moving!"

Hmm, courts have generally held that sidewalks are for more than just walking. Actually, most laws against loitering are specifically against loitering without a purpose, while waiting in line clearly represents a purpose

https://www.citylab.com/life/2014/09/a-guide-to-legal-loitering/380615/

Loitering is protected, first and foremost, by the 14th Amendment. The courts have generally recognized that the right to due process includes the liberty to “remove from one place to another according to inclination,” in the words of a 1900 decision. The right to loiter has also faced two substantial recent challenges. In 1972, Margaret Papachristou challenged a vagrancy ordinance in Jacksonville, Florida, on the grounds that it was too vague; she won. The court found the ordinance encouraged arbitrary and erratic arrests, placing “almost unfettered discretion in the hands of the police.”

Twenty-five years later, the Chicago v. Morales case challenged a 1990 city ordinance banning gang members from loitering. Though the ordinance had support from some members of Chicago's minority communities, the defendant, with backing from the ACLU, won. "[T]he vagueness that dooms this ordinance is not the product of uncertainty about the normal meaning of 'loitering,'" then Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his majority opinion. (In the words of another Supreme Court justice, you know it when you see it). "[B]ut rather, [it is] about what loitering is covered by the ordinance." If a reasonable person is unable to determine when she is breaking the law—do I look like I’m idling without apparent purpose right now? How about now?—then that law, the court decided, cannot be enforced.

One big difference between walking and driving are the public health consequences. We enforce car movement more strictly because it is more dangerous, just like we require insurance to drive but not for walking.
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Balrog0 posted...

Hmm, courts have generally held that sidewalks are for more than just walking. Actually, most laws against loitering are specifically against loitering without a purpose, while waiting in line clearly represents a purpose

Loitering isn't what's happening in this case. A private organization is utilizing a sidewalk for their purposes; again, this is the reason they aren't allowed to stick signs in the middle of a public walkway. And for the police to show up, clearly there must have been more than just a couple people blocking the sidewalk.
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Mal_Fet posted...

Loitering isn't what's happening in this case. A private organization is utilizing a sidewalk for their purposes; again, this is the reason they aren't allowed to stick signs in the middle of a public walkway. And for the police to show up, clearly there must have been more than just a couple people blocking the sidewalk.

So you're saying if they were standing there but not intending to go inside, that would be legal, but it isn't because they're waiting to go inside? The distinction between a public use and a private use here seems a bit fallacious, since a member of the public is trying to use a private establishment. It seems to me that you just want them to be in the wrong -- I've never seen anyone harass a theater goer who is waiting to get tickets to Godspell in the sidewalk. People set up camp sites for that kind of thing all the time in public spaces and get little grief.

As to that last part; how about the fact that no one actually got in trouble being proof no one was doing anything wrong?
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Balrog0 posted...

So you're saying if they were standing there but not intending to go inside, that would be legal,

Assuming there's no laws against loitering, sure.

Balrog0 posted...

but it isn't because they're waiting to go inside?

I mean your OP directly confirms this, so evidently yes.

Balrog0 posted...

I've never seen anyone harass a theater goer who is waiting to get tickets to Godspell in the sidewalk.

How many theaters have you seen where the ticketer is right on the sidewalk?
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Mal_Fet posted...

I mean your OP directly confirms this, so evidently yes.

This isn't a consequence of the ordinance, sorry if that's not clear. The ordinance is more strictly curtailed than just not letting people be in the sidewalk -- but the ordinance is attempting to be passed because they are saying people could do stuff like go get fed at church legally. Except when people are now doing that, they're getting harassed there too

Mal_Fet posted...

How many theaters have you seen where the ticketer is right on the sidewalk?

I saw what I described earlier this year when the exact situation I talked about happened

the ticketer isn't on the sidewalk, the line to get there is directly on the sidewalk, which is how people get to the entry way where the tickets are
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this is dumb, what benefit does this have to anyone?
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Damn_Underscore posted...

this is dumb, what benefit does this have to anyone?

there is one person who is making most of the complaints; the owner of a nearby marketing business. shes made dozens of calls to the police

most of the complaints she's made that have led to citations or arrests have not been caused by homeless people, however
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