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Flash: Homeless encampment raided at 5:00 AM
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Best information I have:
Nanci Armstrong-Temple, D2 candidate for City Council, arrested, possibly for "lynching" and taken to Santa Rita.
Two other people arrested - one taken to the hospital (a young man) and one taken to Santa Rita (his mother).
Videos:
https://www.facebook.com/
FTCftH et al marched at noon from Fairview and Adeline to City Hall. Doors were locked.
https://www.facebook.com/
Berkeleyside has an article up on the rousting:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/
My comment:
This is yet another horrendous example of criminalizing the homeless. But this time it comes with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of liability to the taxpayers of Berkeley. It is quite possible that excessive force and constitutional rights violations lawsuits will be filed, costing the city of Berkeley not only the cost of the settlements and legal fees, but City Attorney time and energy, not to mention the ridiculousness of employing a weaponized army at 5:00 AM to remove peacefully sleeping people.
Not only is this a possibility, but with the arrest of D2 candidate Nanci Armstrong-Temple and her incarceration in Santa Rita on possible "lynching" charges, Berkeley could once again become a center of Black Lives Matter protest as happened in late 2014, and become a national disgrace.
Berkeley's powers that be could have chosen to leave the encampment alone. The bullshit about feces is, well, simply "not bullshit" because it was either planted to give them an excuse to clear the camp or never existed. The City of Berkeley has once again chosen stupidity over sense.
One week ago the City of Berkeley, City Council members, the encampers and homeless advocates and supporters sat down and had a peaceful, intelligent conversation. Four days later the City and the Council dumped feces on those who participated in that conversation, ignoring their concerns and filling their report with lies and innuendo.
This is no way to run a City.
