Tag Archives: Jones v. City of Los Angeles

Everyone Knows That LAMC 41.18(d) Outlaws Sitting Or Lying On A Sidewalk Or Street — At Least If You’re Homeless — But Did You Know That It’s Also Illegal Even To Stand Or Walk In An Alley? — At Least If You’re Homeless — Downtown Neighborhood Prosecutor Kurt Knecht Explains The Whole Thing To The LAPD — Who Aren’t Just Abstractly Interested In Legal Principles That Can’t Be Weaponized — And Clearly This One Can

January 1, 2019 Mike 2 Comments

One of the most shameful sections in the entire Los Angeles Municipal Code is the reprehensible LAMC 41.18(d), which says in its sinister understated way that “No person shall sit, lie or sleep in or upon any street, sidewalk or other public way.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its monumental Jones decision, has called this “one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States” because, unlike laws passed by sane people, it doesn’t even require blocking anything for a violation. Just sitting, lying, or sleeping.¹

As you can imagine if you don’t already know, this law is certainly never enforced against anyone who’s not homeless. We’ve seen, e.g., how Hurricane Kerry Morrison, killer queen of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, can confess publicly to violating it with no consequences. There are many, many such instances. But maybe you’ve noticed the loophole? You can be sure that, as many homeless people as the LAPD’s able to arrest for violating LAMC 41.18(d), there are surely far, far too many who get away unarrested because they’re standing or walking. As long, that is, as they’re not sleepwalking or sleepstanding. Then they can still be arrested.

This is an important unsolved problem in the criminalization of homelessness, at least from the point of view of the criminalizers. That is to say, how can they illegalize not just most, but actually all positions that a homeless body can be in? They have evidently had their finest legal minds working on it, and it turns out that Downtown neighborhood prosecutor Kurt Knecht, has come up with a legal theory on which homeless people can be arrested for standing or walking as well as sitting or lying as long as they’re doing it in an alley that’s open to cars. It’s only a partial solution, to be sure, but it seems to be a new addition to the criminalization toolkit.

The context is found in this September 2017 email from Knecht to LAPD captains Marc Reina and Timothy Harrelson about a homeless encampment in an alley in the 700 block of South Hill Street:² Continue reading Everyone Knows That LAMC 41.18(d) Outlaws Sitting Or Lying On A Sidewalk Or Street — At Least If You’re Homeless — But Did You Know That It’s Also Illegal Even To Stand Or Walk In An Alley? — At Least If You’re Homeless — Downtown Neighborhood Prosecutor Kurt Knecht Explains The Whole Thing To The LAPD — Who Aren’t Just Abstractly Interested In Legal Principles That Can’t Be Weaponized — And Clearly This One Can →

Joint Security Committee

30 Year Police Veteran Longs for the Good Old Days of Beating, Killing, Perjury, Free Cocaine, Doing the Job Without Being Undermined by Governments, Second-Guessed by Whiny Baby Liberals

July 13, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

We didn't catch this guy's name, but we sure did catch his white privilege rage rant... — We didn’t catch this guy’s name, but we sure did catch his white privilege boo-hoo-hoo swelling violins rage rant pity party nostalgia speech…

We’ve written before about the cataclysmic flood of white privilege rage rants unleashed by Fabio Conti’s cri de coeur for the BID Patrol to stop coddling the homeless and start, we don’t know, killing them or whatever it takes to get them out of Hollywood, and the present post concerns yet another boulder in that avalanche of angst. We’re going to comment on the unnamed white privilege rage ranter’s rant (you can see the fellow’s picture somewhere in the vicinity of this sentence) one line at a time. You can read his whole speech after the break and watch it here if you’re so inclined.

…our effort to clean up the neighborhood is kinda like salmon swimming upstream.

No. First of all, salmon swimming upstream are beautiful, delicious, and nutritious. You people in the BID are none of these things. Second, you’re not trying to “clean up the neighborhood,” you’re trying to ethnically cleanse the neighborhood.

Salmon swimming upstream are beautiful, nutritious, and delicious. The BID Patrol is none of these things, izzit? — Salmon swimming upstream are beautiful, nutritious, and delicious. The BID Patrol is none of these things, innit?

One is at least plausibly laudable. The other is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Also, your metaphor is deeply flawed. Salmon like swimming upstream. It’s what they’re born to do. It’s the crowning glory of their lives. They surely, if they could speak, wouldn’t be whining about it.

You know, we have the state and the city working against us by allowing people to sleep on the sidewalk, you know, all night long, because it’s the humane thing to do.

No. The state and the city are not allowing anyone to sleep on the sidewalk because it’s humane. The state doesn’t have the first thing to do with municipal laws and the city has been FORCED by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in its landmark decision Jones v. City of Los Angeles, where it found that the city’s law against sitting on the sidewalk, LAMC 41.18(d), violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. That is, it’s the Constitution of the United States that allows people to sleep on the sidewalk, Mr. Unnamed white privilege rage ranter. The city of Los Angeles fought this case every step of the way, and Charlie Beck and presumably other city officials can’t wait to start enforcing it again as soon as the terms of the settlement are met. By the way, your use of the word humane here is infelicitous; as Albert Einstein once said,¹ sarcasm is the language of the Devil. Note that we’re skipping some of the technicalities of the Jones case here, but the simplified outline is true enough.
Continue reading 30 Year Police Veteran Longs for the Good Old Days of Beating, Killing, Perjury, Free Cocaine, Doing the Job Without Being Undermined by Governments, Second-Guessed by Whiny Baby Liberals →

Hypocrisy

Charlie Beck Explains the Real Purpose of LAHSA’s Homeless Count: It Will Allow LAPD to Resume Mass Incarceration of Homeless

March 24, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Charlie Beck at March 19, 2015 meeting of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, just prior to explaining that the biennial homeless count is gonna let the LAPD start arresting the homeless en masse like God intends them to do — Charlie Beck at March 19, 2015 meeting of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, just prior to explaining how LAHSA’s biennial homeless count is gonna let the LAPD start arresting the homeless *en masse* like God intends them to do

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), whose chair is none other than HPOA Executive Directrix Kerry Morrison, sponsors a biennial count of the homeless population of Los Angeles. And what is the purpose of this massive volunteer effort? Well, according to LAHSA, it’s to “[m]ake a difference in the lives of homeless men, women, and children throughout Los Angeles County.” That turns out to be quite accurate. The homeless count will eventually make a huge difference in the lives of the homeless of Los Angeles.

According to LAHSA executive director Peter Lynn, quoted in a January 2015 press release:

Peter Lynn, human being experiencing executive-directorship of LAHSA and person duly utilizing person-first language when publicly misrepresenting the motives behind the homeless count

The 2015 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is a critical opportunity to gain information about the size and scope of the challenge we face to house community residents experiencing homelessness. We use this information to better target our homeless service resources. Volunteers will make a difference in their community, and the lives of their homeless neighbors, by committing four hours of their time.

Now, doesn’t that just sound warm and fuzzy, but what the heck does it really mean? Well, thanks to an unexpected visit to the March 19, 2015, HPOA Board meeting by Charlie Beck, LAPD capo di tutti capi, we have an explanation for you (hint: when Peter says “better target our homeless” that’s exactly what he means).
Continue reading Charlie Beck Explains the Real Purpose of LAHSA’s Homeless Count: It Will Allow LAPD to Resume Mass Incarceration of Homeless →

Hollywood BID Patrol, The Race Card

BID Patrollies Arrest Black Man for Any Random Thing that Pops Into Their Heads

December 29, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

BID patrollies preparing to arrest a man for blocking the sidewalk even though he is evidently not blocking the sidewalk. Someone would later alter the charge to conform to reality. — BID patrollies preparing to arrest a man for blocking the sidewalk even though it is manifestly evident that he is not blocking the sidewalk. Someone would later alter the charge to conform to reality.

Watch the first minute of this video and see, in 2010, some BID Patrollies confront and accuse a man of “blocking the sidewalk”:

Officer: OK, so do me that favor and just get up and go somewhere cause you’re blocking the sidewalk.

Man: Not blocking the sidewalk, people got places to walk right past me.

Officer: You’re blocking the sidewalk.

Man: I’m not blocking nothing.

And you can see from the video that the man is not, in fact, blocking the sidewalk. But, unsurprisingly, the BID patrollies arrest him anyway.
Continue reading BID Patrollies Arrest Black Man for Any Random Thing that Pops Into Their Heads →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hypocrisy

Sidewalk With BID Patrol

November 1, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Image from Steve Seyler's September 8, 2014 report to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood BIDs — Image from Steve Seyler’s September 8, 2014 report to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood BIDs

Our faithful readers will have been delving eagerly into Steve Seyler’s reports to the Joint Security Committee as we’ve made them available. The image to the right is typical of the weirdly voyeuristic self-serving propaganda that fills these documents.

Seyler is, of course, speaking to his bosses, so he has to make sure they understand what they’re getting for their money. And what are they getting?
Continue reading Sidewalk With BID Patrol →