City to Roll Back Disputed Police Skid Row Sweeps

City officials Thursday agreed to roll back controversial police sweeps of Skid Row after a sit-in at Mayor Tom Bradley’s office by a dozen activists on behalf of the homeless.

Deputy Mayor Mike Gage told protest leader Alice Callaghan, director of a Skid Row service center, that the Los Angeles Police Department will cease its recently enforced policy of confining transients to just six specific Skid Row street corners. Gage also told protesters that police-ordered cleanups of Skid Row sidewalks frequented by the homeless will revert to a schedule of three days a week, rather than the five days a week that has been in force since mid-January.

“Some (police) actions taken were unnecessary,” Gage told reporters.

From now on, he added, “there will be no unnecessary movement of folks who are not causing problems.”

At the same time, Gage said, police will continue to aggressively enforce laws to keep street people from blocking the entrances to Skid Row businesses.

“There has been a dramatic increase in complaints from Central City East area (businessmen). The police are responding . . . it’s how they are responding” that was a problem, Gage said prior to the meeting with police officials.

Police Cmdr. Jim Chambers of the Central Bureau said officers will be instructed to give homeless people printed lists of available social services, but they will not force the homeless to congregate in any particular area.

Participants at the meeting also agreed that the county will assign several social workers to Skid Row for a still-undetermined period and will consider supplying police with housing vouchers that they could hand out to homeless people.

“We are confident that what was objectionable to us and the street people will not continue,” said Callaghan, as she led 11 followers from the public reception area of the mayor’s office, just five minutes before a city-imposed deadline of 5 p.m.

The controversy has been bubbling since mid-January when police began cracking down on Skid Row, forcing transients to move along to specific street corners, increasing the frequency of sidewalk sweeps and enforcing laws against sleeping on the sidewalks more strictly.

Responding to concerns of Skid Row service providers, the mayor’s office scheduled a meeting Thursday to include senior police officials, the city’s homeless projects coordinator and representatives of the county Department of Social Services and the city attorney’s office.

The mayor was represented by Gage and Deputy Mayor Grace Davis. Bradley did not attend.

Before the meeting, however, the protesters moved into City Hall at 10 a.m.

“Some (city officials) said they would work on it,” Callaghan told reporters, “but day after day there has been no change . . . the people on the street can’t wait any longer.”

At first, the protesters were stopped from entering the mayor’s office area by City Hall guards, who had apparently been warned that the group was on its way. But four demonstrators sneaked though the doorway and refused to leave when asked. The rest continued to try to force their way into the office area.

After a few minutes of pushing and shoving, the group was allowed to enter the reception area. They remained there the rest of the day, clogging up the area and taking up most of the seats but otherwise not affecting the flow of business.

Gage had said that the group would not be allowed to stay past the regular office closing time of 5 p.m.

But at 4:50 p.m., Gage returned to City Hall from the meeting with police, explained the agreement to the group and the demonstrators then agreed to leave peacefully.

The protest was the most vocal response yet to the new hard-line police policy. Police have disbanded soup kitchen lines, scooped up and thrown away the homeless’s city-issued blankets and, in one case, ordered a one-legged man “to keep moving,” according to an eyewitness.

“The city is providing no alternative. . . . It’s a forced march out of town,” said Callaghan about the police strategy. “There are a lot of things the city can do. But in two years, all we get is police action. We want social action.”