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That brings us to the greatest conflict of every homeless person: the law. It may have been ably stated by every writer of the past millennium that the law exists not to end crime but to persecute the poor and elevate the rich. There are laws; on the law books of this date that which a person can be arrested for. These include: Obstruction of a Public Passage, Intent to Impersonate a Sidewalk, Leaning with Intent to Fall, Obstruction of the Flight Path of a Pigeon, Begging, Vagrancy (not having photo identification on you), Transience (not having a home), Disrespecting a Police Officer, Disorderly Conduct, Disturbing the Peace, Obstruction of the Due Process of Law, the list goes on, with a law existing that prohibits almost every erroneous activity.
At the height of this police state we find the crime of Vagrancy, that it is illegal to not have either money (which will be quickly appropriated by any investigating officer) or photo ID, which shows shades of 1984 and F451. The police do not arrest people on violating these crimes. That is the popular misconception of the rule. If you walk on the sidewalk you are fulfilling the requirements for the crime of "Obstruction of a Public Passage." I have personally seen people arrested for this crime. I have been told from a friend that when he was walking down the street in Oklahoma City the police stopped him and asked him if he had any sharp objects on him before arresting him. As you can tell any person who uses the sidewalk is effectively breaking the law. It would be too obvious if the law was to make it illegal to breathe air but I feel that that is essentially what it is implying: that they may arrest you and imprison you for terms of years of the aforementioned crimes. What is it then that the police do? They make "sweeps," going from street to street, sometimes with vans, arresting as many homeless people as they can. Those who are committing the same crimes but are not homeless are not questioned. The prerequisite of being homeless or homed tends to be the clothes you wear.
When I was arrested, it was perhaps the most horrific experience of my entire life. I can compare it with nothing else. They took me, fingerprinted me, booked me and threw me in a holding cell. I was standing with about thirty others at least 95% of them black and 20% of them enduring through a psychotic episode (those who are diagnosed by a psychiatrist for mental disorders are often withheld their medication for a period of time up to months). The room itself was about twice the size of a sleeping room and proportionately to the amount of people, it was smaller. There was not enough room for everyone to sit down -- which reminded me of the descriptions of conditions on slave ships. I was in this room for a total of 13 hours straight of which we were only once fed soggy, tuna fish sandwiches. I was accustomed to, at this point in my life, eating dumpster food, and this prison food was comparatively inedible. Finally we were thrown in our cells and waited to see the judge. In prison we waited under the greatest hypocrisy known to us, NNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY! Tell that to my face. In jail I did not personally see anyone beaten by a cop. I had seen, however, a cop do an inspection of the Holding Cell and a suspect started cussing him out. He said, "Get the bleep out of here, you bleeping pig!" The cop responded, "You wait until night time comes and you're behind those prison bars," waving his baton. The cop would leave, a minute would pass and another cop would call out that same inmate. Thirty minutes would pass till we see him again. He was limping, nobody else seemed to really notice. It wasn't just that. It was just so common, so obvious and typical of every cop that it's not even a shock anymore. The cops don't exist to protect and serve. They are the American Gestapo, persecuting, beating, arresting, beating, raping. They spend years learning to attack and kill people and then they are given free reign over the life and liberty of every person in society.
Why do they arrest us? The answer is obvious to any homeless person. We are arrested because we make the city ugly, especially in such a tourist trap town as New Orleans. We are put in jail by police officers because we make the city ugly. I can easily prove this. Around Christmas (when I was arrested), New Years or Mardi Gras or really any other tourist time the number of arrests jumps by at least 10 times. I have seen in jail up to four or five people sharing a single cell that was built for only two. There have also been homeless people to freeze to death in jail. Since the walls are made of stone, there's a typical coldness to it all. Since you are never given a blanket it can be easy to see how someone would freeze to death in prison. So, this one goes out to a downed comrade: RIP "Cornbread." It was too cold that night and he was in HOD (House of Detention) on the top floor where it was the coldest and they found him stiff the next morning.
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Andy Carloff
Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has traveled all across the United States and has experienced American life in the urban centers, as a homeless squatter and as a blue-collar, working-class laborer. Since high school and early development, he has composed a variety of ideas on education, politics, and economy. His positions are ultra-leftist: politically an Anarchist, economically a Socialist, and culturally a Syndicalist. His writings are available through his website: http://www.punkerslut.com
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