Life as a homeless person is a breeze, free of
responsibility and care—or so is the opinion of certain segments of the
population. But as Bob Dylan opined in “Like a Rolling Stone,” true freedom is
“nothing left to lose”—or truer still, death, as the protagonists in the 1969
film Easy Rider would discover too
late. If you live in certain communities, like Kent, Washington, you are liable
to be a moving target for police and thugs if you are homeless. Sometimes you can be taking your life into
your hands by just sleeping in the “wrong” place—which is defined as “anyplace.”
If you are “lucky,” you can survive an encounter with police
and become a millionaire overnight. That is what happened to Angel and Jennifer
Mendez last week, when in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald
awarded them $4.1 million after finding that Los Angeles sheriff deputies
violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and
seizures, and failure to obtain a warrant before such occurred. The Mendezs
were living in a tiny ramshackle shed on the property of a friend when two
deputies—Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson—broke into the shed unannounced
and fired off 15 shots. 14 bullets hit Angel—not enough to kill him, but enough to require a partial amputation
of his right leg—and the deputies would have fired off more had they not happened
to notice his pregnant fiancé, who was hit by the other bullet. The deputies
had a tough choice to make: Kill both the “suspect” and the witness, or stop
firing before they had to explain why they shot a
pregnant woman who was doing nothing but trying to get some sleep.
They would also, of course, have to explain why they went
gun-psycho against an innocent man whose only “crime,” apparently, was being
homeless. Not surprisingly, the deputies did have a “story” in hand, which an
internal “investigation” found “justified” their actions. The claim was that
they were seeking an escaped parolee, apparently a drug dealer that they
“suspected” was the owner of the property the Mendezs were “living” on. The
deputies claimed that the only people they believed might be found in the shack
would be anyone trying to evade police detection. When they broke into the shed,
the deputies claimed that Mendez pointed a gun at them. The “weapon” was a BB
gun which Mendez said was used to shoot at the rats that frequented the shed,
and that it was lying next to him when the deputies busted in, and he had
merely pushed it aside as they entered.
It also turned out that not only were the Mendezs were
innocent of any crime, but the property owner was not only not the parolee that
the deputies were seeking, but the warrantless search of his house turned-up nothing
of interest. In a press release from the law firm representing the Mendezs, it
was noted that “The verdict was awarded on the heels of the United States
Department of Justice’s two year investigation and findings that the Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies in the Antelope Valley engaged in a
widespread pattern of unreasonable force, unlawful detention, intimidation and
illegal searches”—mainly targeting Latinos.
Attorney David Drexler went on to say that “The case has far
reaching implications for impoverished individuals to be protected from
unlawful searches and use of excessive force by law enforcement.” A noble sentiment, but perhaps a naïve one.
The Mendezs were fortunate that they survived to tell their tale; if they had
not, they would have been less than a footnote in another entry in the police
blotter, more anonymous nobodies who no cares if they live or die—fit only to
be chased around like vermin.
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