L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Responds to Homeless “Dumping”
Was it “dumping” or was it a couple of concerned law enforcement officers trying to help a homeless person access services?
“It” is the accusation made by the Los Angeles Police Department that L.A. County Sheriff’s officers “dumped” a homeless man onto Skidrow (Central City East). In essence, this would be a validation to the “urban myth” that law enforcement agencies are “dumping” homeless people into downtown Los Angeles.
The Sheriff’s Department responded (according to the Los Angeles Times--here is the article)…
The Sheriff's Department has maintained that its personnel did nothing wrong in the Harris case. Sheriff Lee Baca and others have said the deputies were simply trying to get Harris services by delivering him to a place where he could receive help.
"They weren't just trying to get rid of him from around the jails," Steve Whitmore, the sheriff's spokesman, said late Tuesday. "They could have done that by calling the LAPD. The jail area is their jurisdiction, and the LAPD would have had to arrest him. [The deputies] were trying to help this man."
So, who is correct? Is this just another sign of the rivalry between the city and county? Or is this accusation real?
For most leaders involved in addressing the homeless problem in Los Angeles, we know that Sheriff Lee Baca has embraced both a caring attitude toward helping the homeless and a desire to do something about the problem. Clearly, this “dumping” is not a Sheriff’s department policy.
However, out of frustration with the problem of homelessness, sometimes offering a quick fix solution (take the person to another community) is a tempting option.
I was interviewed yesterday by a reporter from the L.A. Downtown News who is also looking into whether hospitals “dump” homeless patients in downtown.
This homeless “dumping” is not just a Los Angeles phenomenon. I remember receiving a telephone call a few years ago from local officials in Honolulu, Hawaii. They told me that their homeless problem has increased. Why? They said that cities from the mainland were giving their homeless people a one-way airplane ticket to Hawaii…
posted by LA's Homeless Blog at
9:50 AM
2 Comments:
A homeless friend of mine was picked up flying the sign by two police officers at 10 pm on a cold and wet spring night. He had worked up $17 and change. The officers placed him in their squad, put all of his personal items and cash on the dash, and ran his name for wants and warrants. My friend had no wants/warrants, so they drove him 8 miles to the nearest suburb (11pm, by now), stopped and told him to get out. They wouldn’t return his personals or his money. He was left stranded and had to walk back to town. It had begun to rain. He was wearing a light jacket. His walk back to his ‘camp’ took him over two hours. When I saw him the next morning, he was sick, cold, wet … and had nothing but ‘compliments’ for our cities ‘finest’. My friend feared retaliation from the cops, so he never spoke about the incident. And just when they took 'TO PROTECT AND SERVE' off the squad cars!
http://www.SpareSomeChange.com is the homelessness search engine I made.
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