Police take blankets from Denver homeless after urban camping ban

[Judi Lynn]

Kayvan S.T. Khalatbari
- 12/28/2016


Police in Denver, Colorado, were criticised after a video of them confiscating blankets from homeless people was widely shared on social media this month. The city of Denver has in place a controversial “urban camping ban”, which forbids unauthorized camping on public property, and the local police force are obligated to enforce city “sweeps” of homeless people infringing the ordinance.

The measure, which was passed in 2012, does not criminalise homelessness. Rather, it makes it illegal to use tents, shelters, sleeping bags and other survival gear in the parts of the city where camping is unauthorised. The ban directly targets homeless people, and while it permits them to sleep and stay outside, they are not allowed to do so with a sleeping bag or a mattress. This year has seen Denver authorities conduct a more concerted crackdown on homeless people, with local news site Westword estimating in May that enforcement of the camping ban in just March and April of this year had increased by nearly 500 percent compared to enforcement over the previous 45 months.

Jerry Burton, who has been homeless for three years and can be seen in the video, told FRANCE 24, “This isn’t camping. Camping you do for fun — this you do to survive to the next day.”

Kayvan S.T. Khalatbari is a homeless advocate and lives in Denver. He filmed the police taking blankets from a group of homeless people, including Burton, who were camping outside the Denver City and Council building on the night of November 29. The group had deliberately set up their camp outside the council building as a protest, after being moved along from where they were previously staying.

More:
http://observers.france24.com/en/20161228-denver-urban-camping-ban-police-take-blankets-homeless

[Ohioblue22]

1. Just one more shining example of our "heros" saving lives

[Blue Shoes]

2. Denver PD solving the homeless problem

by freezing them all to death!

[LiberalLovinLug]

3. I'm surprised they didn't also take their coats

How is this even legal?
So if someone who has a home, sits on a bench nearby with a blanket covering them for warmth, that is also illegal? Where does the line stop?

[colorado_ufo]

4. How many blankets in the stands at Broncos games?

[Hortensis]

5. What does this do to the police officers themselves?

And to the morale and makeup of the police deparment? Can you imagine actually being someone who'd pull away whatever these poor people are shivering in--in a Denver winter? Anyone been fired, written up, or demoted for refusing to comply? Sounds like a way to cull the department into a corps of brown-shirts who just follow orders.

[EarthFirst]

7. There are no good cops out there any longer...

What we are left with is a law enforcement militia with which have degrees of lawlessness that govern the way they serve and protect.

If there were as many good cops out there as I hear so many people claim, the good ones would band together and hold a presser. I'm sure of it that there are a hundred organizations willing to help get them the press they'd need; and demand that the ethics and morality of law enforcement in this country be returned to a standard of protection that isn't based on fear and intimidation.

Handing out "Driving Without a Popsicle" citations... it's NOT 'good cop' behavior. It's pure, unadulterated public relations bullsh*t based on re-developing a level of trust that's been completely leveled before they serve and protect the shit out of you.

[Hortensis]

8. Well, I don't believe that at all. An eternal problem,

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2017, 09:40 AM - Edit history (1)

of course, is intradepartment loyalty, that thin blue line. Certainly there can be very few officers who are no complicit in crimes committed by others simply by not doing their official duty to turn in their colleagues. But bowing to often huge institutional pressures to protect other officers does not mean that they don't do their best to protect and serve otherwise. They need us to elect municipal leaders who won't tolerate bad apples, and we so often fail tehm.

This is coming, btw, from someone who was (mildly) physically abused by police twice as a small child, once repeatedly while others stood around and did nothing, and who was also treated very kindly by others in other instances. As an often homeless child, I had a lot more experience of cops than most, and that is that your typical strongly conservative cop probably doesn't like homeless white children any more than black children. Likely we're an offence to their notions of the natural order.

But cops of basically good character who are drawn to police work because they want to serve and do meaningful work are very different.

[Skittles]

6. how is that not theft?

[Little Tich]

9. "Urban camping" is such a euphemism... n/t