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17-year-old Lily Burk's murderer is allegedly Charlie Samuel, a parolee transient, who was arrested for drinking in public and possession of drug paraphernalia. Already behind bars, he was later connected with Burk's murder after fingerprints from inside her car matched. Sameul's "quality of life" arrest under the LAPD's Safer Cities Initiative has received a lot of heat as of late. Calling it an "oft-criticized quality of life arrest," Eric Richardson at blogdowntown puts this weekend's events into that context:
While the fortunate arrest provided a quick turn in the case of Burk's tragic killing, LAPD has been criticized in recent years for just these sorts of arrests.Advocacy groups such as the ACLU and Los Angeles Community Action Network have charged that the department was criminalizing homelessness by arresting those in Skid Row for menial offenses such as drinking in public.
Just two weeks ago the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty named Los Angeles the meanest city toward the homeless, in large part for the tactics used by Safer Cities.
It should be noted, however, Samuel has not been found guilty of Burk's murder.
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I don't see any problem here, just as long as the police apply the law equally to non-homeless people drinking in public on city streets. I'd rather live in a "mean" city than a city where people regularly get drunk on the sidewalks. I think that there must be better causes out there for the advocacy groups to spend their time on.
I agree, any person in any other part of town would get arrested for drinking in public... so police are just doing their jobs, enforcing the law.
I do not know all the facts about this guy's arrest, but what is clear is that the police acted stupidly.
Hmmm, no liberals to defend the rights of the downtrodden homeless on this one? How about some one from the treatment center saying that he was doing so well? No one from Drugs Anonymous?
Jeez, thank god the cops are downtown busting the brothers who have ruined it for the rest of us, white and black. Thank god they found this guy who did this girl in. As for the lesson to be learned, if i was important at southwestern law school, i would spend less money on courses and more money on a wall to keep this crap far away.
"Hmmm, no liberals to defend the rights of the downtrodden homeless on this one?"
How about the fact that there wouldn't be as many homeless people on the street if not for 30 years of neglect? Go back in time to the Reagan years moderation. Were you even around then? It was rare to see a homeless person before Ronald Reagan was President.
I remember one homeless person in my neighborhood back in Houston TX back in the early 80's.
ONE. Compare that to now.
Then Ronald Reagan came into office, among his many cuts to social programs he cut funding for mental health programs. "A waste of tax payer money", he said. We've been paying a much higher price through our neglect ever since. The mental health care centers started declaring people sane and throwing them out in the street because they couldn't afford to give them proper care anymore. Many of the very same people are are the ones living in cardboard boxes, and self medicating with crack cocaine, heroine, methamphetamine today.
So if your going to blame anyone, blame it on that "flaming liberal" Ronald Reagan.
Yeah, about 40% of the homeless have a mental or emotional illness and about 50% have a substance abuse problem. While those groups surely overlap somewhat, their numbers are not insignificant.
There was a huge push for homeless awareness in the late 70s/early 80s. In fact, one dude in particular started it (his name was Mick something, I think, can't remember). He estimated the number of homeless at 2 million in America. Come to find out, it was grossly overstated. However, now I wouldn't be so sure.
Historically, from what I've read, one huge factor was the deinstitutionalization that started with Kennedy in the 60's. The drop-in clinics which replaced those institutions were much easier to gut and demolish (as mentioned under Reagan).
According to the headlines, the addicts create the majority of the havoc. Many are sociopathic and do game the system with ferocity, living without conscience or boundaries.
The ironic thing is there are people who will game the system no matter how barbaric the deterrents.
The root of the problem lies not so much in the laws, but in the intelligent and astute *application* of rules and laws - and the priority for certain agencies must become to employ perceptive individuals who can actually *spot* the difference between the truly 'down and out' and the inhuman monsters.
I live downtown. Many of these people who seem downtrodden or mentally ill are often no more than malcontents who want to blame "da man" for all their ills. I live among them, and I see and hear them every single day, as they loiter on the sidewalks around here.(And these are the ones who HAVE homes; as in SRO units.)
NO ONE can be helped until they decide to help themselves and take responsibility for their own part in their own misfortune. Oddly enough, most of the men I WORK with who are of the same ilk have the same bad attitude... the only difference is they have jobs... but they still moan and complain about the same old tired crap...how someone ELSE is treating them unfairly and keeping them down, which is a crock of SH#@!
So, one does not have to be mentally ill nor unemployed to be a soul-sucking drain on people around him and society in general.