Are our police out of control confiscating property from the homeless?

In a city where homicides will likely set record levels this years – especially of children as the victims – and where excessive use of force by police, along with high incidence of police shooting unarmed people of color – I was astonished recently to witness additional police activity that I found not only unnecessary, but unusually cruel, wasteful of their time, and perhaps illegal. 

Here is what I saw: On a recent Saturday morning, I was stuck at the extra long traffic light located at Kingshighway and Oakland Avenues. I was waiting in the left turn lane when I saw a police SUV cruiser pull up near the corner on Oakland. One officer got out of the cruiser’s passenger side and then I saw him push a grocery cart (often used by the homeless and indigent to carry their only belongings) across the street toward an alley that parallels Kingshighway. The cruiser then did a U-turn and drove partially into the alley.

Soon thereafter the green left arrow appeared and I made my left turn – but slowly as I wanted to see what they could possibly be up to. What I saw reeked of completely unnecessary policing, cruelty and wasted taxpayer money.

The officers were taking the contents of the grocery cart – what appeared to be blankets, clothing, etc. and tossing them into a dumpster! Keep in mind that for homeless and indigent people, having the few items they can carry with them daily are not only essentials to living, but probably their last thread to existence. Most homeless people have only a few things they seek – meals, warm clothing, hopefully shelter for the night, and that glimmer of hope that they can eventually have a home, a job, a normal existence. These police officers, whether they were acting on their own or from higher command policies, were stripping personal property and hope away from the homeless person or persons who had used this cart. 

I’ve often seen a homeless person’s cart along a sidewalk by itself. But if you look around and wait a bit, you will see the homeless person appear. Perhaps they had left it to find a restroom to use, to buy some food from a handout someone had given them, or some other reason. 

Having police officers stop and do something like this did not help to protect and serve our homeless population or make ordinary citizens any safer. Meanwhile, carjackings, random shootings, arson fires, and burglaries are on the increase.

What these officers were doing by trashing the only possessions a homeless person has left to my mind was robbery. It is no different than if a police car stopped in front of my home and walked into my living room and picked up my TV and stereo and walked back out the door. 

Now, some may say what if a homeless person had been arrested for some reason and the officers were just performing a logical, necessary cleanup? My answer would be to apply that argument to an employed, homed person being arrested. In that case, the subject would be taken in to be booked, but their purse, briefcase, or even contents of their automobile would not be taken to the nearest alley and disposed of in a dumpster. For justice to prevail, it must be administered fairly to all.

We must care for and protect the least among us. It is the moral, ethical, and just thing to do. And, doing any less is setting a lower standard that could be applied to others based on the bias and prejudice of some officers. 

One of the City’s excuses for not doing a better job of patrolling neighborhoods and solving crimes is that they are woefully understaffed by as many as 130 officers. We’ve heard this for years. So one would think they would either stop pursuing low-level misdemeanor infractions and concentrate on felony crimes or work harder to hire the additional officers – though on a per capita basis, St. Louis has more officers per capita than most major cities. So having or allowing officers to spend their time harassing and punishing people – no matter what their social status – is counterproductive to “protecting and serving” all citizens of St. Louis.

On my return trip back home, I slowed to look at the alley again, now with the officers long gone. This time there were two empty shopping carts next to the dumpster.

This war on the poor and defenseless must stop. The role of the police is not to attack and harm anyone. We should not criminalize anyone for being poor or disadvantaged. And, it is up to all of us who witness acts like this to speak up in their defense.