ACLU sues San Diego for trashing homeless property

[beatonthestreet]

This upcoming case may have important implications for our Tent City Folk and 'homeless'people in general...

It would be great if people could circulate this info... I will try to get more details as to how we can support our people there and would encourage others to as well...

SAN DIEGO—The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the city of San Diego, its police department and city officials Wednesday alleging city workers destroyed property belonging to the homeless in a series of raids.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges the raids were conducted with the intention of harassing the homeless. It seeks the return of their possessions, a permanent injunction to stop any further raids and other damages.

"These raids have nothing to do with cleaning up trash," ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties Legal Director David Blair-Loy said in a statement. "This is purely and simply a drive to force homeless people out—out of the neighborhood, out of the city, and out of sight and mind."
The suit seeks class-action status and alleges that such city policies discriminate against the homeless and violate their constitutional rights to due process and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
In three separate raids in September and October, city workers took treasured family photos, prescription medications and blankets used to keep warm, the lawsuit claims.

Police officers and city workers watched as homeless men and women temporarily stored their possessions near a vacant lot while they showered and did laundry at a nearby church, the lawsuit said. The workers said their property was "trash" and tossed the plaintiffs' shopping carts containing all their worldly possessions into a garbage truck where they were crushed, the plaintiffs said. When the owners asked to retrieve their items, police told them it was too late and they should leave town for Arizona.

ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties Website

More details and the complaint in full

[beatonthestreet]

Seemgly these brutal tactics are part of a ploy to force the homeless to Arizona according to latest reports...

San Diego's Police Department is "ruthlessly" driving homeless people away from downtown, where they receive help from a church and homeless shelter, by conducting illegal "raids," destroying their property, and telling them to "head for the Arizona border," a class action claims in Federal Court.
The Isaiah Project, a Christian group that helps the homeless by giving them shopping carts for their possessions, called "Born Again Baskets," and nine homeless San Diegans say the city, several of its departments, and the Downtown San Diego Partnership is violating their civil rights.

The homeless people say they left their possessions -including family photos, winter clothes, medications and other necessities - along the street in
downtown San Diego's East Village while they used the bathroom or entered a church or mission, and when they returned they found police officers and city sanitation workers had destroyed their property.

They say they were often made to watch as their possessions were crushed while police officers mocked them.
One class member says he asked a police officer who has just destroyed his possessions, "What am I supposed to do now?"
"You can head for the Arizona border," the officer replied. "I hear Phoenix is nice this time of year."

The class wants the raids stopped and compensation for their losses.

"The city knows that these items are not trash and that they have been placed outside the church or the shelter only temporarily, while their owners are inside seeking necessities such as food and use of the bathroom," the complaint states. "The city also knows that these things belong to homeless people and constitute the entirety of their possessions."

A spokesman for the city's Environmental Services Department, a defendant, told a local weekly that his department had joined with city police for 27 such "abatements," from July 1, 2008 to June 30 this year, and that no one complained about it.

The homeless people and The Isaiah Project are represented by Robert Dreher and by the ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties

source CourtHouse News

http://www.theisaiahproject.org/