GREENFIELD, Ind. — A homeless man was arrested and jailed by a Greenfield police officer earlier this month after he allegedly violated a new city ordinance that bans sleeping or camping on public property.
According to charging documents, Brandon Brooks, 45, was approached by a Greenfield officer on Easter Sunday while sitting on a bench at the plaza next to the Hancock County Courthouse. The officer said Brooks had been trespassed three days earlier under city ordinance 95.02 and was therefore violating that trespass warning.
Brooks was arrested and faces a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing.
“I think there’s a certain element of snootiness and wants those people to go away,” said Greenfield resident Lyn O’Neal.
Brooks’ arrest has caused somewhat of an uproar among some residents, like O’Neal, who believe the ordinance criminalizes and targets the homeless. The arrest was also less than two weeks after the ordinance was passed.
“We’ve had homeless people for years,” O’Neal said. “Every community has homeless people, and where are they supposed to go?” O’Neal said. “I think what the council thought was ‘We don’t care, they can leave town.'”
Greenfield councilman Anthony Scott argued there was an immediate public safety and public health concern with what was happening in the city’s downtown area. Scott said tents were being pitched on the plaza next to the courthouse.
“It became an immediate concern once we found out we had no ordinance on the books that allowed the police to do any kind of enforcement,” Scott said. “It was an immediate issue that was happening, and the police had no legal way to combat it.”
Scott said some people were using the restroom in the entryways of businesses and that residents were being accosted by the homeless.
Aside from the issues with the ordinance itself, several people who spoke with FOX59/CBS4 said they took issue with how the council passed it.
During their April 9 meeting, the council suspended the rules and conducted the ordinance’s first, second and third reading — passing the ordinance with unanimous support. There was no discussion and no public input.
“It was a concern that was immediate,” Scott said. “Public safety is a primary to what we do and there was an immediate need to kind of deal with the situation at hand.”
But O’Neal and others believe the council never wanted public input to begin with.
“If this was some kind of an emergency that would justify waving second and third readings, well then why wouldn’t you tell the citizens? ‘My gosh, citizens. We’ve got an emergency, we’ve got to do something,'” O’Neal said sarcastically. “They didn’t do that.”
O’Neal said she hopes to see the ordinance repealed and for the council to address the root issue of homelessness. Scott said the ordinance was never intended to fix the homeless situation, and he doesn’t believe the council is equipped to do that.
Brooks was bonded out of jail and will be back in court in June.
Scott was the only city council member to respond to FOX59/CBS4’s request for comment.
An assistant to Mayor Guy Titus said he was out of the office and unable to comment.
You can read the full ordinance here:
Comments are closed.