Tonight, I came out of a local store in Pasadena to see two police cars parked on the side of the street with their lights flashing.
I crossed to the other side to avoid being entangled in their business. That’s when I realized two cops with two separate cars had stopped a homeless person.
As I got to the other side, other spectators started lining up witnessing the “arrest”. “Why are they doing this?” someone asked. Another replied: “It’s a homeless person.” “What about his belongings?”, a lady asked. Their questions went unanswered.
One of the cops managed to put the helpless homeless person in one of the cars while his belongings were left in a cart on the side of California Boulevard.
What was the purpose of their act? Let’s assume their intentions were to get the homeless person to a shelter to protect him from the cold of the night, what about his belongings?
What kind of a society have we become? Do belongings become not important if they happen to be inside a beat-up shopping cart?
I felt angry, at myself. Angry and ashamed for not publicly voicing concerns to the officers about what they were doing and the homeless’ belongings. Are we supposed to just stand there and assume what they’re doing is the right thing? Doesn’t the “right thing” mean securing the homeless person’s belongings?
Pasadena is the only city that has no citizen oversight committee in the region. Back in October, the Pasadena City Council shut down a request by Councilmember John Kennedy to look at the possibility of establishing a citizen oversight committee for the Police Department.
As I was leaving, someone commented:” They have a quota to fill”.
Let’s hope not.
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