Last Wednesday evening, a summer storm passed through Tampa, and an estimated 30 houseless people sought refuge under two large bus shelters in downtown.
They rested and ate dinner under the shelters near the corner of N Marion and E Tyler Street, until five responding units from the Tampa Police Department (TPD) arrived to move them from the property.
TPD bodycam footage obtained by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay shows one of the responding officers—whose bodycam footage begins after people are already being dispersed—approach a sleeping person on a bench, lean in to make contact, and tell them, “You gotta go.”
The video then shows the person wake up, wrap up their sleeping bag, and join the rest of the crowd in leaving from the sheltered area.
Volunteers from Tampa Food Not Bombs (FNB) had just brought dinner as part of the organization’s mission to help the unhoused. The people police forced out were just trying to rest in peace after their meal, and no one else was attempting to use the bus shelters at that time of night, according to FNB volunteers.
After TPD posted no trespassing signs under the downtown underhangs they usually gather at, the shelters are some of the last places houseless people have to seek refuge from the rain and heat.
FNB posted a video of the incident, writing in the caption, “Tonight during our share the monsters showed up out of nowhere to harass our unhoused friends downtown.”
The video shows multiple squad cars pulling up with their lights flashing, and an undercover police vehicle riding by and observing the people as they disperse.
Volunteers from FNB say the police told the unhoused people they were trespassing on Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) property by being under the bus shelters, and had to move.
CL obtained a police report of the incident, which confirmed that five units arrived on the scene around 8 p.m. In the report, the incident was only referred to as a “building check,” that the situation was “cleared,” but no details about the expulsion of the people were included.
“This was a self-initiated call due to ongoing complaints,” Jamel Lanee, Public Safety Information Coordinator for TPD wrote in an email. “We have been working with HART regarding complaints from the company and customers. We have a signed Trespass Affidavit on file, which allows us to ask people to leave the property when HART or security is not around.”
CL asked if it is standard operating procedure for officers to not include that they moved a large group of people from shelter in the report, and Lanee said that notes are not required for every call.
“There was no police action taken (No citations or warnings were issued) therefore no report is required because everyone complied,” Lanee wrote.
Last year, the Downtown River Arts Neighborhood Association (DRANA) was granted $100,000 for more policing in downtown from Tampa’s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). In the announcement about the funds, DRANA said that the extra policing was expected to begin in early Summer of 2021, and that one of their main concerns was what they called “homeless issues.”
DRANA’s President Dan Traugott confirmed that the funds are currently being used for increased downtown police presence, but did not elaborate further. He referred CL to the downtown CRA and CL reached out with questions about the funding and how it’s being used but has yet to hear back.
At the time that DRANA received the funding, FNB issued a statement to CL about what the increase of policing might mean for the homeless community.
“The police will often violently physically evict people out of places where they are residing. They steal tents, sleeping bags and backpacks as well as other essential items our houseless neighbors need to survive,” FNB wrote. “They get arrested and ticketed for ‘panhandling’ with no way to make bail, or they hand out virtual court dates knowing these people have extremely limited resources to a computer or the internet. We believe an inflated police budget will increase the harm done to our houseless neighbors.”
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This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2021.
