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Hello, everyone, it's Anthony Bandiero Here, Attorney senior instructor for blue to gold law enforcement training. Bring the roadside chat This question comes from an officer in Idaho. And so basically, the officer asks, basically, about are homeless people allowed to sleep in parks after hours. And the reason that this is coming up is because of a case called Martin versus Boise, which is a case of the Ninth Circuit, right, which the US Supreme Court refused to hear. So basically, it's good law in the ninth circuit. So here's a scenario. The officers aware that enforcing laws against homeless people is very problematic, after this case, the Martin case, because basically what the Supreme Court or the Ninth Circuit said is that if you're going to enforce anti camping ordinances against homeless people, the question before you enforce it, and you arrest them? Or you cite them is, where can they go? Do they have a place an alternative place to go? Is there a shelter? There's a bit available? Is there another place? A park in town where or a place where you want campers to go? Is that place close enough? Or are you trying to say that the next available camping ground that you can go to for free, is 100 miles  down the highway, right? So these are all great questions. And I'm telling you right now that you need to be very, very careful. Before you start running around enforcing all various laws against homeless people. I am not saying that you're not going to enforce the being in the street, or you can enforce it being in the street blocking traffic, blocking sidewalks. But when it comes to these, these anti camping enforcement actions, just be careful. I have a whole webinar on dealing with homeless people and RVs tents and so forth. But just be careful. I personally would not want to see these decisions made at the sergeant or line level, I just wouldn't I would like them to be made at the command level. I want lieutenants and above and especially my chiefs, talking to their legal counsel, I want them talking to their attorney, so the prosecutors to their state's attorney, because you are potentially getting yourself wrapped up into a very expensive lawsuit. Homeless people have a lot of advocates, they may not have a lot of money, but they have a lot of attorneys willing to give their time to fight their cases. Okay, so they pull on the heartstrings. And I understand I mean, a lot of homeless people are our veterans are our people, you know, but a lot of them are criminals, too. But I'm just saying a lot of people pull on the heartstrings and just understand that. So let's move forward with the situation. The officer has a city ordinance that basically closes down the park at a certain time, let's call it 10pm Probably gonna be earlier than that, but let's just say 10pm. And they have homeless people sleeping in the park. Well, can they enforce that? It goes, I mean, just from my point of view is the first question I have is, do they have a place to go? And where is that place? And is that place a reasonable accommodation, for example, if you have a homeless shelter in town, that's religious based, and the person cannot get into the shelter unless they go to church, pray and so forth. And the person will not have anything to do with that. And that means that they will not be allowed inside the homeless shelter. Guess what, to me, that is not an alternative for them. It has to be a realistic alternative. And again, if your town is small, but you have a in the county, there's a camping space for homeless people. But how far is that place? And can the person get there? And the cops, you know, anyway, these are all questions, these are all things that your attorney is gonna have to give you feedback on. So can we enforce these park hours? The answer is maybe where do you want them to go? Right, where can they go? And is it reasonable that they can get there and stay there? So they had a situation where the this homeless person had a warrant for their arrest.
But it was a it was an extra, you know, extra valuable but they would not extradite unless the city had their own charges. Well, they The person was in a park after hours. And it seems to me that they just let the person go, because they were not sure about charging the person with their own charges. And in order to also have the warrants attach and have extradition. And that probably was the right answer. Because again, the question for the court would be, did you have the dispersion of alternative? If the answer is no, that citation for being in the park after hours may have been unlawfully issued and we have problems from there. Also, the cop says we have people who are sleeping in cars. And this causes a lot of costs or service every week. Right? So what are the rules there? The rules are exactly the same, the person is homeless, right? I mean, I see no difference between sleeping in a sleeping bag in the park and being in your Dodge Neon on the street. Personally, I see no difference constitutionally, under this Ninth Circuit case. So I think you have to have light hands for either one, either of them. Here's my point just going forward. The boys a case stands for the proposition that if there's no reasonable alternative, you cannot enforce these anti camping ordinances against them. Because there's no place to go. There's an alternative. However, you can enforce the littering the aggressive panhandling, the blocking the sidewalks, you can enforce those things, but you can't enforce the necessary, anti-camping park. And the final thing is, guys, do not forget that if you go in this alone, if you start being the homeless enforcer, right, and you're going to clean up your town, you may be signing your department up for a million dollar lawsuit. Be careful, pay the money and go get some legal advice. If you don't have a full time attorney, have your department pay the money and, and ask that lawyer for their opinion before you start going down this road. Because it could be very expensive. It could be I could bite you very, very hard. It's just the way it is whether you agree with it or not. It's just the way it is in 2021. I hope it helps three favors. Hit the like button or comment. Hit subscribe. Let's get 10,000 10s of 1000s of cops watching these. And finally, share with your friends. Until next time, my friends keep doing the great job you doing out there. Stay safe.
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