One wonders how many of these homeless victimizing officers considers himself a follower of Christ.

"Interfering with a peace officer" is the catch-all charge that the police invent when someone questions what they're doing.

If the charge isn't dropped by the district attorney, it will be thrown out in court. Either way the cops have gotten what they wanted, which was to harass someone who was breaking no law.

I'd say 'Keith Jackson' should be happy, he wasn't homeless last night.

Denis, I wonder if "the City" knows that PPS is taking pictures for "record keeping" for them... or if UofO knows?

The reason they are cracking down is because folks are causing damage to the buildings, slashing employees tires, throwing bottles at passerby's, interfering with the other people who want to sleep (including severely beating up older homeless individuals) and leaving immense amounts of trash and drug related items behind.
While I do not agree with the sidewalk ordinance, the recent weeks have gotten out of hand. Many folks are just trying to sleep down there, and they are getting purposely pushed out by those who are aggressive and in the area specifically to do/sell drugs, not sleep. Until these activities became more prevalent, PPS and PPB did not need to frequent the area to this extent and crack down on something as small as hanging out in the private parking lot. But both private buildings are fed up with their employees being harassed and property getting damaged.

This reminds me of when I was five or six-years-old and my mother politely asked me not to touch the fragile figurine that was on the coffee table. I looked her right in the eye and touched it anyway. Again, she calmly asked me to stop touching it and warned me that I'd be in trouble if I did it again. I waited a few seconds and decided to touch it yet again, proud of myself for standing up to such an unreasonable, oppressive request. She then walked over to me and slapped my hand. I started bawling, indignant over the injustice of it all.

Frank, Ib has been homeless before, I am sure he understands what happened in far better detail than you do.

Adrian, do you know who owns those two buildings on either side of hte parking lot?

So, bullnose, when one of these homeless people applies for a job, what does he put down for a home address? How does he answer the questions about whether he's ever been convicted of a crime or if he has his own transportation? I really don't think getting a job is the slam dunk you make it out to be for someone who can't even predict where he'll be sleeping tonight.

Having worked over at the White Stag building,, I can tell you that the quality of the area has continued to go downhill over the past few months. I used to park there on the weekends when I was out in china town, but after I found 4 guys looking in my car windows, never again will I park there.

Patrick, in answer to your question, the owners of the properties around the parking area: Mercy Corp, UoO (glass area), UoO (Whitestag building) and The City. There is also a Saturday Market storage and office there. So, City, City, UoO, UoO, and Mercy Corp

Scott,
Thanks. I already knew, but I was wondering who else would realize that it was mostly city owned, and that that which is not city owned is owned by non profits and schools...
Mercy Corps' involvement in this makes me wonder exactly how merciful they are.

If Mercy Corp was involved, I guess that they have much more experience at this than any of us do, and would defer to their wisdom.

From what I could tell in the video, all the police had to to was "disengage" and walk away and things would have gone back to normal. But the police have a serious problem of making too strong of show of force. They never know when to back off!!

The video shows exactly what we have been demanding from our police force- level headed professionalism.