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We have a situation in my city that must be similar to what others are experiencing. I'm wondering how other agencies have handled it.
We have a significant population of undocumented immigrants from various Central American countries. One homeless group in particular has taken up residence in the woods surrounding one of our public parks. Their hobby is drinking vodka in quanties that would kill a good-size herd of cattle. As you can imagine, their behavior can be unpleasant and make other citizens uncomfortable. They also end up with alcohol poisoning on a fairly regular basis and have to be transported to the hospital via ambulance.
You'd think that as a unit of the police department that specializes in park and beach patrol we'd remove them, but it's not so easy. At one time we took a pretty hard-line approach. Possession of hard liquor in the parks is an Infraction, as is violating the park curfew of 12 midnight to 5:30 AM. We would approach and ask for a valid ID so we could write the summons; when they could not produce one, we would take them into custody where they would have to post a bond in the amount of the fine. Since none of them can post bond, they would remain incarcerated until their court appearance. The overall result was that they didn't want to live in those locations anymore, and moved on. Until....
....we were directed by the court to stop doing that. Since the only punishment for an Infraction is a fine, it was felt that incarcerating them pending a court appearance had a disproportionate punative effect on these individuals, since anyone else would get a mail-in ticket and be on their way, while these folks would spend the night (often the weekend) in jail on an offense that carried no prison time. Don't bother with counter-arguments -- I know them all. The courts don't care.
Of course that means they are now immune to prosecution for anything short of a genuine crime. They have befriended a lawyer of the same ethnicity as themselves, and he has advised them never to answer law enforcement officers' questions, even those concerning their identity. With no ID and no cooperation, there is no way to issue them a summons, and the court says we can't arrest them unless they commit a CRIME. My state repealed its public drunkenness laws years ago on the basis that they violated Constitutional protections; drunks can now only be arrested if they engage in specific criminal behavior in addition to their state of intoxication. So no criminal statute applies unless they do something specific. And often when they do, it's one or two people in a group of ten or twelve, and the witnesses cannot single out who it is (and the group, of course, denies that it was anyone).
Meanwhile the community doesn't want them where they are (nor does the Parks & Rec department, which has to clean up after them).
The police department, on the other hand, has a directive out stating that officers should respond and handle any legitimate citizen complaint against them that has an identifiable complainant, but we are to avoid officer-initiated contacts unless a crime is observed. The department is worried about a class action suit (and with good reason -- one has been threatened by their free lawyer). But of course this ties our hands further.
A perfect example of why people don't want this group there was this Sunday. Picture this: several families are enjoying the nice sunny day and participating in a pickup baseball game on one of our athletic fields. One of these resident individuals, drunk out of his mind, happens along. He stops at the side of the field where they're playing, drops his pants, and -- in the presence of men, women, and children as young as seven -- defecates on the field. He gives the audience the finger as he strolls away after wiping himself with his bare hand.
Of course in that instance we had plenty of complainants and a positive ID of the fellow, whom we apprehended... er... brown-handed.
But obviously sitting around and waiting for such incidents -- or something where someone actually gets hurt -- makes us look like we're not doing our jobs, which (from where I sit) is a pretty accurate picture. But we've been TOLD not to do our job, at least in this regard, except when there is clear criminality.
What have others experienced with groups like this, and how did your department handle it?
Pete
We have a significant population of undocumented immigrants from various Central American countries. One homeless group in particular has taken up residence in the woods surrounding one of our public parks. Their hobby is drinking vodka in quanties that would kill a good-size herd of cattle. As you can imagine, their behavior can be unpleasant and make other citizens uncomfortable. They also end up with alcohol poisoning on a fairly regular basis and have to be transported to the hospital via ambulance.
You'd think that as a unit of the police department that specializes in park and beach patrol we'd remove them, but it's not so easy. At one time we took a pretty hard-line approach. Possession of hard liquor in the parks is an Infraction, as is violating the park curfew of 12 midnight to 5:30 AM. We would approach and ask for a valid ID so we could write the summons; when they could not produce one, we would take them into custody where they would have to post a bond in the amount of the fine. Since none of them can post bond, they would remain incarcerated until their court appearance. The overall result was that they didn't want to live in those locations anymore, and moved on. Until....
....we were directed by the court to stop doing that. Since the only punishment for an Infraction is a fine, it was felt that incarcerating them pending a court appearance had a disproportionate punative effect on these individuals, since anyone else would get a mail-in ticket and be on their way, while these folks would spend the night (often the weekend) in jail on an offense that carried no prison time. Don't bother with counter-arguments -- I know them all. The courts don't care.
Of course that means they are now immune to prosecution for anything short of a genuine crime. They have befriended a lawyer of the same ethnicity as themselves, and he has advised them never to answer law enforcement officers' questions, even those concerning their identity. With no ID and no cooperation, there is no way to issue them a summons, and the court says we can't arrest them unless they commit a CRIME. My state repealed its public drunkenness laws years ago on the basis that they violated Constitutional protections; drunks can now only be arrested if they engage in specific criminal behavior in addition to their state of intoxication. So no criminal statute applies unless they do something specific. And often when they do, it's one or two people in a group of ten or twelve, and the witnesses cannot single out who it is (and the group, of course, denies that it was anyone).
Meanwhile the community doesn't want them where they are (nor does the Parks & Rec department, which has to clean up after them).
The police department, on the other hand, has a directive out stating that officers should respond and handle any legitimate citizen complaint against them that has an identifiable complainant, but we are to avoid officer-initiated contacts unless a crime is observed. The department is worried about a class action suit (and with good reason -- one has been threatened by their free lawyer). But of course this ties our hands further.
A perfect example of why people don't want this group there was this Sunday. Picture this: several families are enjoying the nice sunny day and participating in a pickup baseball game on one of our athletic fields. One of these resident individuals, drunk out of his mind, happens along. He stops at the side of the field where they're playing, drops his pants, and -- in the presence of men, women, and children as young as seven -- defecates on the field. He gives the audience the finger as he strolls away after wiping himself with his bare hand.
Of course in that instance we had plenty of complainants and a positive ID of the fellow, whom we apprehended... er... brown-handed.
But obviously sitting around and waiting for such incidents -- or something where someone actually gets hurt -- makes us look like we're not doing our jobs, which (from where I sit) is a pretty accurate picture. But we've been TOLD not to do our job, at least in this regard, except when there is clear criminality.
What have others experienced with groups like this, and how did your department handle it?
Pete
... it "could" happen?
>>>>> 
Yeah, all in all, it was good. 
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