GIULIANI'S LATEST ATROCITY
Cops raid homeless shelters
By Gery
Armsby
New York
Hundreds of people in New York's homeless shelters awoke
Jan. 19 to pre-dawn police raids.
Mayor Rudy Giuliani has again exhibited the malicious
extremes of repressive force he will go to in his attacks
against the poor. This most recent ploy was concocted at City
Hall using old bench warrants and banking on the increased
likelihood of homeless people turning to shelters during a
blistering cold night.
In short, the raid was a cheap trick to entrap 125 homeless
people who have had past run-ins with the cops.
It was widely reported that many of the outstanding warrants
used in yanking people from the shelters were based on minor
violations such as "public urination," "mistaken identity," and
"turnstile jumping." In some cases the warrants were four or
five years old.
Most of those arrested, including a high percentage of
women, were held for hours, made to wait again in crowded
courtrooms, then processed and released--often with their
charges completely dismissed. This indicated that the raids
were meant to create as much hassle and demoralization as
possible for the targeted homeless women and men.
After coming under heavy fire from activists throughout the
city for the move, Giuliani told reporters at a press
conference that the raids were aimed at "making the shelters a
safer place for the homeless."
Giuliani's statements fooled almost no one in the five
boroughs of New York City. It is widely observed that hizzoner
the mayor doesn't care one bit about the safety or wellbeing of
the city's poor and homeless people.
He is the very same mayor who in October unveiled a program
of forced labor in the shelters. There, non-compliance with
workfare assignments is met with threats of jail and/or loss of
one's children to foster care.
And he is also the very same mayor who, during the November
and December "shopping season," unleashed the NYPD against
people sleeping on the streets. Cops made multiple sweeps
resulting in hundreds of arrests.
When it comes to city voters, in his bid for higher
political office, he needs to play to conservative contributors
from other parts of the state.
During the New York Senate race, he has chosen to use the
homeless issue in New York City to showcase his racist,
anti-poor tactics to the most reactionary elements in the state
and the Washington establishment.
Bourgeois politicians and bosses around the country have
long been plotting and practicing ways of "dealing with"
homelessness, from enforcing nuisance ordinances to out-and-out
evicting the homeless by force from public parks and vacant,
blighted buildings.
Giuliani garnered national attention recently with his
thoroughly exploitative work-for-shelter initiative. Now
reactionary politicians from other cities are waiting to see if
they can get away with following his lead.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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