Classic “when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail” solution! See homeless people, put up a no trespassing sign! And a sign that says restrooms for customers only!
BACKGROUND
Due to on-going police and neighborhood harassment (ok, I hadn’t said that before, but now, it’s truly what it feels like) at the Social Justice Center, we requested a meeting with the police department. For details for the on-going sage of the last 7 months, read here.
Short summary
- January/February – we reach out to MPD, they have no concerns, suggest we put up a camera and we do. We do a public records request for calls to our property and wait a month for results.
- March police stop by – we explain we adjusted the timing on our lights, put up a camera and explored moving the van (parking lot too small), gate at end of ramp (fire department says we can’t) and a portapotty (noisy, smelling, attract more people to our property). After he left we replaced some signs saying no camping, don’t block the ramp, no illegal drug sales or usage etc. They said they’d get back to us after talking to supervisor. We had no follow up contact.
- April our board president met with the police and afterwards we put up more signs, revised our rules, closed the buliding May 5 -16.
- April, we reach out to Neighborhood Association, alder, parks, etc. Had to reach out multiple times and then we organized a meeting.
- May we closed our building for 2 weeks and cleaned up the exterior, rearranged the interior for better views, rehung signs and further revised rules.
- May 9th we held a meeting where police call us “non-compliant”. But we listened to neighbors and after the meeting we installed lights around the public health vending machine and tried again to figure out how to get motion detector lights on the side of the van.
- Jun 20th we had our second neighborhood meeting after which we followed up with Catalyst for Change for their ideas and provided police a copy of our rules and protocols in the building.
- June 27th we sought the advice of Community Development Division and Catalyst for change.
- July the police were at our property a lot and we interacted with many of them, repeating each time that we would like to resolve this situation (see here for more details)
Since then the police or city attorney’s office or the neighbors are asking us to
- Remove the public health vending machine
- Remove the food pantry
- Remove the benches
- Cut our rain/polinator garden
MEETING WITH MADISON POLICE DEPARTMENT, CITY ATTORNEY AND MAYOR’S STAFF
When we met with the police department (Captain Kipp Hartman, Neighborhood Resource Officer Sydney Divala, Intern) and Assistant City Attorney Jennifer Zilavy, the things they want us to do are:
- put up a no trespassing sign (we’ve voted no 2 times in the last six months and multiple times before)
- staff the building 24/7 (Approximate cost: $250,000/yr)
- Monitor our camera in real time 24/7
We did get them agree to:
- The police will send us a list of weekly calls to our address, instead of making us wait a month to do a open records request.
- The city attorney’s office will then get us the police reports for each call
- We will have one point of contact with the police department Neighborhood Officer Sydney Divala and if she is not available James Dower.
I think they have given up on this list, these items were not mentioned:
- Remove the public health vending machine
- Remove the food pantry
- Remove the benches
- Cut our rain/pollinator garden
ABOUT THAT NO TRESPASSING SIGN THAT SEEMS TO BE THE STICKING POINT
Why we have said no?
The Social Justice Center houses many different organizations, including grassroots organizations with many volunteers and we have public and private meetings in our building with many attendees. These meetings are 7 days a week and can be as early at 8am and go as late as 11pm. The regular hours the building is open is 9am – 3pm. The other times you need a fob or code to get in or we can arrange for the door to automatically lock or unlock.
These are the organizations in our building.
- MadWorC – Madison Worker Cooperative
- Interpreters Cooperative Madison
- Common Good Bookkeeping
- Madison Community Cooperative
- Madison Street Medicine
- LGBTQ Books to Prisoners
- Wisconsin Books to Prisoners
- Family Farm Defenders
- Madison Mutual Aid Network
- Progressive Dane
- 608 Arts
- Madison InfoShop
- IWW-Madison (International Workers of the World)
- Madison Area DSA (Democratic Socialist of America)
We also serve as fiscal agents for various groups include Free the 350 bail fund and others.
Due to the very large number of people in and out of the building, how would the police know if they need to approach someone? We don’t want organization volunteers getting harassed by the police, particularly because our organizations work with many different marginalized organizations and our guests and members reflect that population.
Additional background/what the police really want?
A trespassing ticket costs $500.00. Extra $300 if you have “alcoholic beverage, whether in an open or closed”
So, if we put up the no trespassing sign we would have to sign something that says
I hereby authorize any officers from the Madison Police Department to serve as my agent and act on my behalf in situations where persons, who are not residents or their authorized guests, or those who are not on official business, are found on my property.
It is my desire that these persons be removed from the premises and/or arrested for trespassing. I will sign a complaint and assist in their prosecution. This is in accordance with the provisions of Section 23.07(2), Madison General Ordinances.
and
This document does not expire. Upon sale of the property, the new owner needs to submit a letter reaffirming the request that MPD enforce No Trespassing on the property.
Here is the letter and form to sign.
We have also been told that even if the sign gets ripped down, the police would still be able to act because we signed the form.
Reality/Irony of no trespassing signs not being a solution
First of all, the area that the folks are hanging out in is the terrace, not owned by the Social Justice Center, it is a public space owned by the city, so the no trespassing sign has no impact there.
Second, you can tell by the list of organizations above, we’re not putting up that trespassing sign. The biggest/funniest/most ironic piece of all of this is that if we put up a sign
- Police would ticket homeless people who can’t pay the tickets. ($500 each)
- The Mutual Aid Network would help enroll people into the Homeless Restorative Justice programs that lets the people volunteer hours to pay off the city municipal tickets they can’ pay.
- If in that program, people would get credit for the things they already do at the Social Justice Center because many already help clean and go to various meetings or pro-social activities.
So, what would we have accomplished?
And a sad note and a potential life or death situation
I posted on facebook about some of the comments the guys have said to me:
- “seems like they want us to commit suicide”
- “I’m go to end up dying or kill myself”
- “we’re not supposed to exist”
And the other day, we helped Catalyst for Change find a guy with suicidal ideations who said he was going to commit “suicide by cop”.
Can you imagine if we put a no trespassing sign up? We’ve already had 5 police killings within 5 blocks of the SJC (2 of the 5 on the neighboring block), we don’t need a sixth.
- April 12, 2006: Madison Police Officer Kip Kellogg shoots Victor Montero-Diaz, 45, three times at a gas station on Williamson Street. Montero-Diaz, was killed by a shot to the chest. (Block next to SJC)
- March 6, 2015: Tony Robinson unarmed 19‑year‑old shot by Officer Matthew Kenny, later deemed justified by Dane County DA. (Block next to SJC other side of the street from the gas station above)
- Nov. 9, 2012: Officer Stephen Heimsness, responding to a call of a burglary in progress, fatally shoots Paul Heenan, 30, Heenan mistakenly entered the home of a neighbor, who called police and escorted Heenan outside while his wife called police. Police and the district attorney cleared Heimsness of wrongdoing, the department later moved to have Heimsness fired for other policy violations; he resigned in October 2013. (500 block of S. Baldwin)
- June 2016: Michael William Schumacher (41) of Fitchburg, WI was fatally shot by Madison police Officer Hector Rivera on Morrison Street, near Lake Monona. After breaking into a residence while holding a garden pitchfork. (5 blocks from the SJC)
- March 9, 2004: Gregory E. Velasquez, 39, is fatally shot by two Madison officers after he walks into the Red Caboose Day Care Center on Williamson Street and attacks a worker with a meat cleaver and threatens other workers and children. (5 blocks from the SJC)
MEANWHILE TO OUR NEIGHBORS
Call or text any time of the day or night. 608-345-8720. If I don’t answer, text me cuz I don’t answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number due to all the spam.
The immediate neighbor also has the phone number of 3 or 4 other SJC members she can share with you.
Also, I stopped by 4 times this weekend to check on things, but didn’t see anything except people. Existing.
And, don’t worry, they got the message, they will not knock on your door, even if they need you to call 911.