Madison Police Give Homeless $180 Tickets For Asking For A Cigarette
Police accountability seems to be a real issue these days. As more and more police departments use excessive force and unfair tickets against protesters, mostly with no reprimand, police across the country seem to be taking notice. Handing out citations and making arrests is no longer a remedy for a dangerous individual, it is now used as a tactic to squash dissent or “get rid of” people the police would just rather not deal with. For protesters here in Madison this is a rather new thing. The Wisconsin State Capitol, in fact, was built for petitioning the government and includes certain structural enhancements to make sound amplify naturally. For the homeless, however, this harassment is not new.
Before Scott Walker was Governor, the Wisconsin State Capitol was open to the homeless people at night. Given as the building required 24 hour police in the basement anyways, homeless were allowed to sleep there at night when the building was closed. They would stay in the basement, but this seemed to work quite well. When the massive protests started, it was decided that the basement would better serve as a mass police facility so the homeless were kicked out. After the “need” for police lowered, the Department of Administration, a department under Walker, made the decision not to allow the homeless back in. Naturally, with homeless services lacking and temporary, this along with other factors have led to an increase of citizens sleeping on the streets.
It is no secret that police target homeless people for all sorts of tickets and arrests. It is something society tries to keep hush-hush, although few refute that the problem exists. I find this an issue for human reasons. Homeless people are people as well. It is much harder for a homeless person to get a job than one who is not. There is a stigma and bias towards the homeless. I find this inhuman and sickening and realize it is very very difficult to come up from being homeless. But even the people who believe homelessness is always the person’s fault and they just need to “figure it out” on their own should be concerned. A system of constantly ticketing and jailing the homeless and creating ordinances to allow or further harassment costs major money. It usually takes at least two days to see a judge in Madison if you are arrested. Even if a homeless person is only arrested once a month, it costs the city and county more money to house them than to buy them an apartment.
Things seemed to have progressed on May 21, 2012, when the Madison Police Department decided to interpret a city ordinance in a way that would sicken most anyone. A comrade in the Wisconsin struggle, Matty and I had stepped outside to have a cigarette. A local homeless man by the name of Moses crossed the street and kindly asked if either of us had a spare cigarette for him. Matty said he did and handed him one. Seconds later we were surrounded, two bicycle police and one squad officer. The police asked Matty if he gave the man a cigarette. Matty said yes and he immediately proceeded to write Moses a ticket. He explained this was a new policy and they now interpret the local panhandling ordinance (MGO 24.12) to include asking for a cigarette, water, food, a pen, or anything of any value. The officer had said that this was decided by Police Chief Noble Wray (608) 266-4022 and Mayor Paul Soglin (608)-266-4611 because “the homeless and their panhandling has become a detriment to quality of life downtown.” I then started recording a video:
Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/24/madison-police/
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Don't answer that. I really don't want to know. 
