Police Arresting the Homeless

Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters (“Fixing Public’s Broken Windows,” Commentary, Aug. 28) states that “the issue the community of Santa Ana is facing is one of crime and disorder.” Yet the issue the homeless in Santa Ana face is arrest and harassment by his overzealous “peace” officers.

Being homeless, I submit, is not a crime. To arrest, intimidate and chain these people to park benches for six hours and to number them like cattle is totally uncalled for. Even if, in some instances, the alleged charges of loitering, pandering and urinating in public are true, do such “crimes” warrant such demeaning behavior?

Such disgraceful police behavior as this reminds one of the remark of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the martyred Lutheran minister put to death by the Nazis: “They came for the Jews, and I did not object, as I was not a Jew; they came for the Catholics, and I did not object, as I was not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to object.”

The Civic Center disorder may be a “broken window” needing repair, but rounding up the destitute and indigent on trumped-up charges of littering, etc., is not the answer. Minorities and the downtrodden would appear to be the targets here. The result is fear and hatred toward the Police Department by a vast majority of the Latino community in Santa Ana.

LARRY TARBELL

Brea