Arresting developments: The drama never ends

I really didn’t want to write about drama surrounding local homelessness issues again this week. After all, there’s a much better homelessness story on the front page, and unlike what I’m about to write here, that story focuses on people who are actually homeless.

But considering recent events, I feel obliged to deliver the following.

Simply put, things have taken a sharp turn from “Your run-of-the-mill Chico drama” into “So weird, this is Annie Bidwell-throughthe-looking-glass” territory. I’d say “You can’t make this stuff up,” but we rounded that jagged corner a long time ago.

First, I’m going to point out some things that may sound shocking and maybe even give everyone pause: Chico, each of you with roofs over your heads have a lot to be happy about today.

First, for Chico First and Citizens For A Safe Chico folks: Seen our parks lately? Aren’t most of them nice and clean? Generally free of homeless encampments and mounds of garbage? Be happy. The new city council is doing exactly what most of the voters wanted them to do, and it’s made progress down that avenue in a big hurry.

Next, for groups in the homeless-advocacy category: Look! CHAT got $300,000 for shelter help, following a motion made by Sean Morgan (whether you like that part or not). Safe Space found some churches to help with shelter and medical care this winter. The new Jesus Center opens soon and Torres has taken in some people. It’s actual progress the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while, and everyone involved with this is working hard to somehow fix a statewide and national problem that never should have created such a burden on the shoulders of small communities in the first place.

Yet almost nobody in this big tent seems happy. Why? Because nobody’s winning. It seems half the town is mad because the homeless people haven’t gone away, regardless of how many times the city plays whack-a-mole with the encampments; and the other half is mad because unsheltered people are constantly being told “go somewhere else” without having anyplace they can actually go — and who can blame them?

So nobody’s completely getting their way, and a few are doubling down in hopes of picking up the pace.

Which leads us to the past 10 days.

First, local attorney Rob Berry drafted a letter to the Chico city manager, city attorney and chief of police saying he intended to use his legal authority to place people under citizen’s arrest if he saw them breaking laws. In particular, he mentioned Councilor Scott Huber and other local homeless advocates because they’d helped move people out of “illegal camping” sites and driven them elsewhere where, one can assume, they illegally camped again.

Full disclosure: Berry is a contributor to our Pro vs. Con series and a frequent writer of letters to the editor. I’ve had several discussions with him the past couple of years, just as I’ve had discussions with people of every political stripe, including everyone mentioned in this column. Sometimes I agree with these people and sometimes I don’t, and vice-versa. But we keep communicating, which I think is always a good thing.

Not surprisingly, Berry’s letter quickly made the rounds. Stand Up For Chico, the PAC fronted by Angela McLaughlin, issued a response expressing their horror — especially the possibility that citizens could be detained by another citizen in the middle of helping homeless people move, and how exactly was that going to work, given the high levels of animosity that already exist between the various parties? The group urged the city to step in with some guidelines, calling Berry everything from a pettifogger to a vigilante in the process.

Thus, the powder keg was lit, and nothing short of a perfectly worded response from a city official could defuse it. Enter Chief of Police Matt Madden, who wrote a response so sublime, I wish I could call it my own.

Among the highlights from Madden’s release on the topic of citizen’s arrests:

• “If a citizen sees a crime that has occurred, is occurring, or about to occur, law enforcement should be contacted immediately, and the citizen should avoid taking matters into their own hands.”

• “The citizen making the arrest takes on the civil liability of making potential false arrests and could be held criminally responsible for rights violations, such as the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

• And finally, “Due to the potentially high level of danger to the public, we encourage citizens to contact the Chico Police Department and allow our staff to investigate crimes in progress.”

The statement didn’t include any provisions like “Unless, of course, you see a member of the city council loading a homeless person’s tent into the back of his truck, in which case you should follow him,” so the message seemed clear: Let the police do their jobs.

What a concept. So, let’s take a big-picture look here.

For all the assaults, burglaries, stabbings, shootings, robberies and other crimes that keep our police busy — involving the unsheltered and yes, even people with a front door that locks — it’s clear they’d much rather respond to a call themselves than end up in the middle of any citizen-arrest dramas in this particular arena, especially if those catch on and become “the new thing” to do.

Honestly, that’s the biggest worry here. It’s not the thought that an attorney who’s not shy about insisting laws are followed is threatening citizen’s arrest on a councilor who isn’t shy about his feelings that the homeless need some place to actually be.

A bigger concern for me, in this age of oft-dangerous political extremism, is … what happens next? Who else will decide they want to follow people around town in hopes they catch them in an illegal act? Who’s itching to one-up the dreaded “other side” with threats of arrest? What happens if someone places someone else under citizen’s arrest and the other person doesn’t feel like being citizen-arrested? What if that person citizen-arrests the first person back? How’d you like to write up that police report, and does any of this sound like a good use of our police department’s time?

Bottom line, don’t police have more important things to worry about than whether or not someone is giving a homeless person a ride across town? Can’t people who are rightly proud to say “I support the police” at least agree on that, especially since our district attorney, Mike Ramsey, told Action News that there’s no crime here unless aid was given in physically setting up camp in a new illegal place? Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that if a homeless person gets kicked out of a park and doesn’t have a ride, he’s going to end up someplace else anyway — probably someplace many people in this town won’t approve of? And where are they supposed to go, anyway?

I wish I had all of the answers. It’s exasperating that I even have to ask some of these questions.

But, if I may dish out some advice that I expect absolutely no one will follow, I think we all need to take a deep breath here. Be happy about any progress that is made. This is a huge statewide and even national problem and there is no easy fix. Keep doing everything you can for what you believe and, just for the weirdness of it, try looking at things from another point of view once in a while. I may stand alone with this thought, but many of you are not as far apart in your beliefs as you’ve convinced yourselves that you are.

Anyway, let’s see if we can un-torque the tension meter a few notches and enjoy this Sunday. I’ll do my part by promising never to touch this particular subject in this particular space again until the thermometer hits triple digits, regardless of how heated the rhetoric gets in the meantime.

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, please read the story on the front page. As I said at the beginning, it’s a heck of a lot more important than this one.