Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #443

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
California Volunteers Share Food With The Homeless, Get Arrested By Police
Lee Moran, HuffPost
Volunteers in a Southern California city near San Diego face misde- meanor charges for handing out food to the homeless.
Police in El Cajon arrested around 12 people from the “Break The Ban” group who were distrib- uting foodand other itemsto the city’s
homeless popu- lation at Wells Park on Sunday
afternoon, accord ing to multiple press reports.
Officers alleged that the group’s members were violating a ban on sharing food in city-owned public spaces, which the El Cajon City Council intro- duced in October 2017 to stop an outbreak of Hepatitis A.
Police did not take the individu- als they cited to jail, but those arrested have been scheduled
to appear in court, according to local NBC 7 news.
The group has vowed to legally challenge the citations and the food-sharing ban.
“It was absolutely necessary to beak this
law until they were willing to enforce it, and, now that they have, we will continue this fight in court,” one of the volunteers, Shane Parmely, told The San Diego Union-
Tribune.
Fellow organizer Mark Lane told a press conference (video below) on Monday that the ban was “based on an excuse.”
“Yes, we have a problem with Hepatitis A but you don’t battle that by not feed- ing homeless people,” said Lane. “You battle that by giving them proper rest- room facilities, proper hand washing facilities, and vaccinations, education.”
Matthew Schneck, who attended the event, said that if he was “going to be arrested for something, let it be for feeding the homeless.”
“I’m not going to apologize for doing the right thing,” he defiant-
ly added. Schneck also shared a photo- graph of his cita- tion to Twitter:
The city council and police have yet to comment on the arrests.
The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties con- demned the inci- dent, which was held on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“Dr. Martin Luther King was deeply concerned about ending poverty and hunger in America,” its executive direc- tor, Norma Chavez Peterson, said in an online state- ment. “I have no doubt that if he were alive today, Dr. King would stand with people who would share food with the hungry; and he would stand
against those who would call this a crime.”
The San Diego County public health officer declared in September 2017 that the Hepatitis A outbreak in the area was a local public health emergency, writ- ing that “the majority of peo- ple who have contracted Hepatitis A during this outbreak have been home- less and/or illicit drug users.”
As of Jan. 3, there have
been 577 report- ed cases of the highly-infectious liver condition that can be trans- mitted sexually by handling con- taminated objects or eating infected food. Some 20 deaths have also been linked to the current out- break.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine