Los Angeles police arrest grandmother 59 times
Ann Moody believes that she has a right to be wherever she chooses to be.According to a federal appeals court, she is absolutely correct. The ruling, made in 2006, stated that due to the extreme lack of provided shelter, the city of Los Angeles could no longer arrest people for sleeping and sitting in public.
The city does not agree. In that same year, Los Angeles began a program called the Safer City Initiative. Based on the idea that when petty crime is punished, more serious crime is prevented, in its first year, the program racked up mostly pedestrian violations. About 12,000 citations were handed out. However, some say the initiative is a clever system for unfairly targeting homeless people.
With 59 arrests (Ann Moody now holds the distinction of being the most often arrested person in the city of Los Angeles) the homeless grandmother has been jailed for 15 months after 14 convictions. Approximately $250,000 of the taxpayers money has been spent on keeping Moody from sitting down (there have been some arrests for selling cigarettes.)
Read the AlterNet article here.
posted by Jacqueline Dowd @ 8:50 PM
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