A police state on skid row (LAT)

[spindrifter]

By Ramona Ripston, RAMONA RIPSTON is executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.
March 12, 2007

THE LOS ANGELES Police Department has a message for skid row residents: The 4th Amendment doesn't apply here. That's the constitutional protection from arbitrary searches, and L.A. police officers have been violating it since late last year by detaining, handcuffing and going through people's pockets and possessions on the slimmest pretenses.

Cecil Bledsoe is a 65-year-old African American man who was once homeless and now works as a counselor helping others find housing. He was on his way to the bus in December when a police car rolled up and officers ordered him against a wall, then searched and questioned him. Bledsoe was released because he had done nothing wrong.

Police are also detaining homeless people for minor infractions such as jaywalking or sitting on the sidewalk, then using those pretexts as a basis to search them. Shawn Robertson was packing up his belongings one morning last November when police stood him against a wall and handcuffed him. They searched his stuff, ran his name, then let him go.

Paul Johnson was searched in December by officers who told him that "everybody down here is on probation or parole." Johnson isn't. The police officer who stopped him later admitted that he could not offer a reason for the search.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ripston12mar12,0,1146424.story?coll=la-opinion-center

[bemildred]

1. The poor have never had any rights with the LAPD. nt

[ThomCat]

4. The poor rarely have any rights

anywhere. It's not just the LAPD.
x(

[Peace Patriot]

2. Land of the free, home of brave..... nt

[kestrel91316]

3. I'm thinking Ramona Ripston lives in an area where there aren't any homeless

to impinge in a major way on her quality of life or business income. She needs to experience the joy of drug-addled freaks TRESPASSING CONTINUALLY ON HER PROPERTY and USING HER PROPERTY AS A TOILET for a few years without the LAPD doing a damned thing. A homeless encampment blocking a pedestrian tunnel under the freeway near HER home so SHE can't walk to work or shop might give her a more realistic perspective.

She's a little too rosy-eyed for me in this matter. LAPD isn't rousting families with small children down at Pershing Square.