BUMS' RUSH
NYPDYPD finally tackles vagrants
NYPD cops yesterday rousted a homeless horde that has long tormented Metro-North commuters and Harlem residents — more than six weeks after it was exposed by The Post.
The raid on the litterstrewn hangout near the 125th Street station followed Mayor de Blasio’s admission on Tuesday that the surging number
of people living on the city’s streets was “a reality.”
Police converged on the area at about 3:30 p.m. — as part of a major crackdown announced on Wednesday targeting 80plus trouble spots.
“OK, guys. It’s time to move along,” a sergeant told two dozen squatters.
Most of the vagrants went quietly, but one who said he was a Vietnam War veteran angrily shouted obscenities as cops sorted through the junk left behind.
“I’m a US Marine, why am I still homeless? The city keeps telling me they’ll help me and find me housing, and they still haven’t. What did I go fight for?” screamed 61yearold Anthony Rainey.
“Who are you motherfkers? You call yourself police? You can take those milk cartons back to the precinct with you! You’re welcome!”
Those moved from the sidewalk all refused offers to go to a shelter or a mentalhealth facility. One man wearing a hospital bracelet passed out and was placed in an ambulance.
The police action came a day after de Blasio told WNYC radio that there was “both a perception problem and a reality problem” regard ing the spike in homelessness, which The Post has documented for months.
“We’re not going to tolerate disorder,” Hizzoner said. “We’re not going to tolerate homeless encampments.”
The mayor visited a homeless encampment in the South Bronx Wednesday, but did not order it to be evacuated, CBS News said.
NYPD Chief of Patrol Carlos Gomez said cops had drawn up a list of more than 80 homeless encampments and “hot spots” across the city, and plan to systematically shut down all of them.
“Prior to a visit, the teams will . . . offer outreach and assistance and they’ll give fair warning of the impending cleanup, which can be up to a week after the visit,” Gomez told a news conference at 1 Police Plaza.
A majority of the drifters rousted in Harlem headed about 100 feet south along Park Avenue before sitting down on the sidewalk. By 6 p.m., about 10 of them had returned to the encampment.
“We have nowhere to go. This is the only place I have. So I move for awhile, and then come back,” said Richard Thomas, 54.
William Johnstone, 40, who said he’d been living on the streets off and on for the past two decades, blasted de Blasio for making “false promises” to take care of the homeless.
“The current services under de Blasio aren’t adequate; they don’t meet these people’s needs. I’ve never seen it so bad here before, and I’ve lived in Harlem all my life,” Johnstone said.
An afternoon visit by The Post to Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, site of a longstanding encampment, turned up only one homeless woman mumbling in the street.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said more than 10,000 cops would get special training because about 40 percent of homeless people “have significant emotional issues.”
“We estimate about 2 percent of that population are the ones that scare the hell out of everybody with the irrational acts that they commit,” he said.
Bratton also blasted “the courts in this state” for ruling that cops can no longer bust people if they refuse orders to move along for sitting on sidewalks or subway grates.
“The obligation on you is to walk around them,” he said. “It doesn’t seem quite right, but that’s the limitation our officers have.”
Additional reporting by Aaron Feis and Bruce Golding