LA Injunction Allows 'Skid Row' Residents to Pollute Streets

story from Breitbart
by Ben Shapiro

LA Injunction Allows 'Skid Row' Residents to Pollute Streets With Human Waste, Needles

A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health inspected an area of Los Angeles’ skid row, located in downtown Los Angeles, and found that the area was aptly named: it contained drug needles, used condoms, rat infestations, and human feces. City officials cleaned it up; the health inspectors then went back for another look.

And the area was worse than before.

Welcome to Los Angeles !!!

What's wrong with letting "the people" clean up the mess ??

Talk about a nanny state

I bet the word spread fast after they cleaned it up the first time !!

No wonder it got all filthy all over again so fast.

“The human feces are certainly very disturbing, as are the hypodermic needles,” lamented Jonathan Fielding, the county’s top public health official. “The situation appears to have worsened.”

Now taxpayers will have to pay for the streets to the power-washed every week. The skid row camps, which doubled as Occupy protest camps a few months back, have created risk of meningitis and other communicable diseases.

“From the city’s point of view, we have a public health crisis,” said Special Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher. “There are such vast quantities of materials deposited on the streets and sidewalks.”

Bewilderment at its best !

Why aren’t these polluters arrested? Because there is a judicial injunction that prevents police from seizing abandoned property from the residents of skid row. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is now looking at the injunction. Instead, the city is supposed to clean up after people who poop on the streets. And California residents are supposed to pay for it. In fact, the situation has gotten so bad that when city officials try to clean up the streets, random residents of skid row will pop up and claim that the refuse is their personal property, thereby preventing the city from cleaning up the mess.

The injunction is so bad that Union Rescue Mission has complained that it is responsible for the buildup of human waste and garbage throughout the area, since the police can’t do anything about it.

How 'bout all those people on public assistance ?

C'mon .... you all can pitch in and clean up the streets for "the people" !!

Where is the Patriotism anyway ?

Originally posted by xuenchen
story from Breitbart

No, the story isnt from Breitbart, there is a clear link back to the actual story from the LA Times.

Breitbart just stole the story, and reworded it a bit.

Put metal rubbish bins every 2 metres wih stickers on them that say "every time you litter we will add more bins "
They can also double as incinerators/BBQ's in the cooler months.
problem solved and i dont even have a degree in city planning.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by xuenchen
story from Breitbart

No, the story isnt from Breitbart, there is a clear link back to the actual story from the LA Times.

Breitbart just stole the story, and reworded it a bit.

that's why I said "story"

the "article" was from the LA Times.

reply to post by alfa1


you may do well working for the city council,
They love to bicker over minor details instead of fixing the problem like i have done

Well they should definetly change the law. I wonder how many people have gotten poked by a needle accidentally and infected with HIV/Hep C..

First of all, is this the homeless?

If so, tough luck on the tax payers, who are repsonsible for a world in which only a tiny fraction of 7 billion live in homes and have food and a normal life, and they are patting themselves on the back and saying, we're all that, and billions are dog poo.

That group if they are OK'ing this system is evil, propping demons running this incredible system of slavery and abuse of humanity.

PERIOD. Responsible. Co-creators, Co-dependents even. They keep it going.

The homeless are the traumatized fall out, often medically disabled, mentally disabled, self medicating street drugs, and ohter than that, the CIA and black ops run the prostitution, gangs and drugs.

WAKE UP AND STOP THIS. FORM COMMUNITY COUNSELS TO CHANGE THINGS! VENUS PROJECT.

SERVE AND PROTECT THE HANDICAPPED.

AND WHAT THE HELL DOES BEING ON ASSISSTANCE, IE LOOKING AFTER KIDS AS A SINGLE MOM USUALLY, ALREADY FULL TIME JOB HAVE TO DO WITH CLEANING UP DRUGS OR GOING ANYWHERE NEAR VIOLENCE AND MALE DOMINATED GANGS!! SWEET NOTHING!!!!

Having lived in California and knowing a bit about LA, especially the area known as “Skid Row” there is more to the story than meets the eye.

While it may seem like a shame and terrible, the words, “You reap what you sow” comes to mind and is something that is hitting LA hard right now. You see part of the problem is not the homeless, but the people and the government of LA and the entire area, as well as the country. This is typical of what the issues there are, which is the mentality of, “Not in my Backyard” has created. Every time someone or organization wants to build a homeless shelter, those in the proposed neighborhood want nothing to do with it, but all feel concern about the homeless problem. Combined that with the laws that restrict where some parts of the population can live, namely those with criminal records, and this was bound to happen. It is not shocking or should be a shock, as it is what the area and city set up, they knew that this was going to cause problems, but no one looks forward when creating laws about the effects and affects on society at large.

No, we should not be shocked, but take this as a warning of what happens when they try to do the right thing, but do not put forth the effort of thought and consideration about the laws that they have on the books. Society is cruel, and too many of those who are returning to society end up cast away if not pushed into situations like this. And are we so cold and apathetic to where we can not forgive? The main problem with down on skid row is that the majority of the people are a part of the population that society deems undesirable, those being convicted of crimes, and having served their time, paid the price, yet many businesses do not want to give them the second chance to try to become a part of society, ostracizing them or some other segment of the population. They are the people we threw away, and then the city enacted laws, voted on and approved to keep them in one location. So what to do with them? Now there is a problem that the city and the population can not ignore anymore, nor should they. Hopefully it will lead to better laws and changes that will be a benefit to all, or become more restrictive.

Now taxpayers will have to pay for the streets to the power-washed every week. The skid row camps, which doubled as Occupy protest camps a few months back, have created risk of meningitis and other communicable diseases.

www.breitbart.com...

Countless people every single week are caught up in the dubious snare of street cleaning ordinances that disallow parking on certain sides of the street for a period of four hours, early in the morning until noon, for "street cleaners" that do no such thing. It is nothing more than a blatant revenue raising scheme while the City of Los Angeles willfully refuses to fix the vast parking problems that residents of Los Angeles face. If they were to fix those parking problems a whole hell of lot fewer tickets would be issued for "illegally" parking in a "street cleaning" zone.

I begin with this to put some context into what the Peoples Republic of Los Angeles and their totalitarian regime are truly up to. They've raised plenty of revenue through "street cleaning" parking tickets to pay for the "power cleaning" trucks to clean up "Skid Row". Of course, providing portapotties would do wonders to solving a big portion of this problem, but do you think the totalitarian regime of the People's Republic of Los Angeles have any interest in preventing the feces problem of "Skid Row"? Think again. L.A. Overspends by $27,378 an Hour, but they sure as hell don't do this outrageous overspending on behalf of the people, and certainly not the homeless.

Why aren’t these polluters arrested? Because there is a judicial injunction that prevents police from seizing abandoned property from the residents of skid row.

Does anyone truly believe that homeless people are jumping up and demanding that city officials not clean up the feces because it is their "abandoned property"? This injunction the article or "story" declines to name is likely Justin v. City of Los Angeles, No. CV-00-12352 LGB, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17881 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 5, 2000), where the plaintiff's - Justin et al - sought injunctive relief from the City of Los Angeles police officers from harassing the homeless with two different anti-loitering ordinances. The plaintiff's ultimately got their injunctive relief and I suspect that this is the injunction being lamented by the "story" in the O.P. I would link Justin v. Los Angeles if it were online, but it is not.

However, a later ruling rendered by the 9th Circuit is Jones v. City of Los Angeles Consider this:

Los Angeles's Skid Row has the highest concentration of homeless individuals in the United States.   Charlie LeDuff, In Los Angeles, Skid Row Resists an Upgrade, N.Y. Times, July 15, 2003, at A1. According to the declaration of Michael Alvidrez, a manager of single-room-occupancy (“SRO”) hotels in Skid Row owned by the Skid Row Housing Trust, since the mid-1970s Los Angeles has chosen to centralize homeless services in Skid Row. See also Edward G. Goetz, Land Use and Homeless Policy in Los Angeles, 16 Int'l. J. Urb. & Regional Res. 540, 543 (1992) (discussing the City's long-standing “policy of concentrating and containing the homeless in the Skid Row area”).   The area is now largely comprised of SRO hotels (multi-unit housing for very low income persons typically consisting of a single room with shared bathroom), shelters, and other facilities for the homeless.

The People's Republic of Los Angeles has, in cooperation with "charitable homeless advocates", conspired to corral the homeless into "Skid Row", creating the very problem they now lament. However, let's not stop there, consider this:

Skid Row is a place of desperate poverty, drug use, and crime, where Porta-Potties serve as sleeping quarters and houses of prostitution.   Steve Lopez, A Corner Where L.A. Hits Rock Bottom, L.A. Times, Oct. 17, 2005, at A1. Recently, it has been reported that local hospitals and law enforcement agencies from nearby suburban areas have been caught “dumping” homeless individuals in Skid Row upon their release.

But the "story" doesn't end there. Why not follow me to the next post to better understand the continuing saga of "Skid Row" and the People's Republic of Los Angeles and their totalitarian regime.

Continued...

Continuing with Jones v. Los Angeles:

Cara Mia DiMassa & Richard Winton, Dumping of Homeless Suspected Downtown, L.A. Times, Sept. 23, 2005, at A1. This led Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to order an investigation into the phenomenon in September 2005.   Cara Mia DiMassa & Richard Fausset, Mayor Orders Probe of Skid Row Dumping, L.A. Times, Sept. 27, 2005, at B1. L.A.P.D. Chief William Bratton, insisting that the Department does not target the homeless but only people who violate city ordinances (presumably including the ordinance at issue), has stated:

“If the behavior is aberrant, in the sense that it breaks the law, then there are city ordinances․ You arrest them, prosecute them.   Put them in jail.   And if they do it again, you arrest them, prosecute them, and put them in jail.   It's that simple.”

Of course, with Jones, this is precisely what they did. They put him in jail, prosecuted him, and put him jail. The People's Republic of Los Angeles thought it was that simple, but:

Section 41.18(d) is one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States.   The City can secure a conviction under the ordinance against anyone who merely sits, lies, or sleeps in a public way at any time of day.

To hell with goddamned State Constitution that very expressly prohibits such tyranny, right? Badges? They don't need no stinking badges, just guns!

The City next argues that Appellants lack standing because they could assert a necessity defense.   In support of this argument, the City relies on In re Eichorn, 69 Cal.App.4th 382, 81 Cal.Rptr.2d 535, 539-40 (1998), in which the California Court of Appeal held that a homeless defendant may raise a necessity defense to violation of a municipal anti-camping ordinance.   This argument also lacks merit.

You bet your ass it lacks merit and it was a boneheaded legal argument made by the city attorneys of the People's Republic of Los Angeles. One has to wonder how much of the $27,378 an hour overspending that city spends goes to buying these moronic city attorney's lunch and paying for their parties? Why is it such a boneheaded legal argument?

Finally, one must question the policy of arresting, jailing, and prosecuting individuals whom the City Attorney concedes cannot be convicted due to a necessity defense.   If there is no offense for which the homeless can be convicted, is the City admitting that all that comes before is merely police harassment of a vulnerable population?

And repeated and stated differently later:

The argument that at trial a homeless individual would have recourse to a necessity defense so as to avoid conviction begs the question why the City arrests homeless individuals during nighttime in the first place, other than out of indifference or meanness.

The boneheaded city attorneys made a legal argument now forever on record that the People's Republic of Los Angeles concedes that the homeless have the lawful defense of necessity on their side - and they do - which means any arresting police officer today grossly misapplying an ordinance in a most imprudent effort to expand jurisdiction where none exists have no "good faith" argument of defense if they run into a homeless person who knows me and was stupid enough to cite that homeless person.

Indeed, I work very closely with a number of homeless people in this People's Republic of Los Angeles who want nothing to do with the stench of "Skid Row" and seek refuge in public parks. Now the misapplication of an ordinance goes from anti-loitering to "illegal camping", and in fact, I have had to argue with a few police officers on behalf of these homeless and when I point to Justin v. Los Angeles, they know the ruling and try to lecture me that this was a case where the 9th Circuit "made a new law" where police couldn't harass the homeless in "Skid Row" as if the law only has force in certain areas and lacks force in others. It is invariably, however, Jones v. Los Angeles, of which none I've spoken to thus far even know about, that upon learning of this case law, eyes widen in horror as I explain how the city attorneys threw them under a bus for a stupid legal argument that was bound to be rejected by the most liberal court in the nation.

Because I work closely with homeless people, my own experience is that most of the homeless are drug addicts and drunks, they're the wretched, the miserable the beaten down who have no hope for any future, and it can be overwhelmingly daunting just trying to hold a conversation with them, let alone spend time defending them, but my passion has always been the universal unalienable rights of all. I fight fiercely for a rich man's right to own property, and I fight just as fiercely for that rich man to get over the fact that a homeless guy is sleeping in the park next to their home, as his right.