Few seem to agree on how homelessness should be dealt.
- Click here for the ordinance in question.
First, relevant terms and concepts:
- trial
- jury
- ordinance
- City Council
- verdict.
- tickets, each seeking $254
- freedoms of expression and religion
- Houston city attorney Arturo Michel
- said in a statement emailed Sunday evening. “It is a
- health and safety issue
- the protection of Houston’s residents
- complaints and incidents
- jury selection
- officer
- Houston Police Department
- crime suppression unit
- Central Library
- exercising my constitutional right
- reasonable doubt
- permission
- poverty
- permission had been rescinded
- unanimous verdict: not guilty.
- Click here for the article.
The first of a controversial series of tickets Houston has issued the volunteer group Food Not Bombs went to trial Friday. And before the end of the day, a jury found the volunteer, Phillip Picone, not guilty of violating city law for feeding those in need in front of the Central Library.
The ordinance was put in place by City Council in 2012 but largely had gone unenforced for over a decade, municipal records show. The city began issuing tickets after funding its own dinners at a police parking lot just outside the courthouse doors where the trial was being heard. Houston has declared that the lot is the approved public site for any group that wants to give away meals.
In an emailed statement, a city spokesperson explained that the meal program Houston is funding at the police parking lot is designed to use food to attract people to a place where they can engage with an array of services “on a reoccurring basis.”
“This is why we fight back,” Picone said after the verdict.
As of the hearing, Food Not Bombs had received 45 tickets, each seeking $254, for continuing to pass out meals at the library instead. Volunteers have argued that the law is immoral and violates their freedoms of expression and religion. Nine more tickets are scheduled for court Thursday and Friday.
“The City of Houston intends to vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless,” said Houston city attorney Arturo Michel said in a statement emailed Sunday evening. “It is a health and safety issue for the protection of Houston’s residents. There have been complaints and incidents regarding the congregation of the homeless around the library, even during off hours.” The city has also decided to stop using the Central Library as an official cooling center during heat emergencies like the one unfolding this week.
During jury selection Friday, Picone’s lawyer, Paul Kubosh, explained the Houston law to potential jurors with slices of cake wrapped in cellophane.
One by one, he placed them atop a wooden partition separating him from the jurors, recalled two Food Not Bombs volunteers present. If he gave five slices to people in need, without permission of the property owner, he was fine, he said, according to the volunteers. If he gave six, he’d be violating the ordinance. And if he gave them to people who were not in need, that was also fine. (Kubosh is representing a number of people in Picone’s situation free of charge.)
The lawyer representing the city called up the officer who issued the ticket as a witness. Adam A. Ancira, an officer with 14 years of experience with the Houston Police Department, works with the crime suppression unit. He said he had gone to the Central Library the evening of March 3 because Lt. Jennifer Kennedy had told him to issue a citation for violating an ordinance against charitable feeding.
FOOD FIGHT: Houston just started enforcing a decade-old ban on feeding the homeless. Volunteers are fighting back.
Ancira body camera footage shows him getting out of his vehicle and handing Picone a sheet of paper as other volunteers stood nearby, at least one recording the scene. “Here’s your warning,” Ancira said. “You don’t feed the homeless.” He said they would issue one person a ticket and wait until the meal had concluded. “We’re not here to harass you or anything.”
"I'm exercising my constitutional right," Picone protests in the video.
After the video played, Ancira answered a series of questions. His arms were crossed, holding either side of his chest. “I’m human, too,” he said. “I like feeding the homeless, too. You just can’t do it there.”
TICKETS: Houston issued over 1,400 tickets to homeless for 'encamping' in 2022, up from 63 in 2018
He said the ticket in early March was the only time he had issued a citation for violating the charitable feeding ordinance. Since then, other officers have issued a ticket to a Food Not Bombs volunteer every Monday and Wednesday.
In his closing statement, Kubosh argued that there was room for reasonable doubt as to whether Picone had violated the ordinance. The group had been feeding people at the location for 12 years, and in 2012, then-Mayor Annise Parker gave them permission to feed the homeless there. That permission still lives on the city’s website. He argued that the police did not have the authority to give or take away permission, which opened room for reasonable doubt.
He ended with an appeal, not to the details of the ordinance, but to see the volunteers as people trying to do good. “People have a passion for things,” he said. “(The volunteers) have a passion for getting rid of poverty, and this is how they put it to work.”
Phillip Picone and Shere Dore fist bump after Picone is found not guilty for violating a Houston ordinance against giving free meals without permission from public property. Volunteers with the organization Food Not Bombs have wracked up over three dozen tickets for providing meals outside of the public library downtown.
The city's lawyer, who declined to give her name, argued that the warning the police had handed to volunteers made it clear that permission had been rescinded. She said that the idea that permission given in 2012 overrode the Houston Police Department’s notice “does not make sense.”
Shortly after, the jurors filed back into the room and issued their unanimous verdict: not guilty.
Picone turned toward two Food Not Bombs volunteers in the audience, Shere Dore and Tilal Ahmed, and smiled widely. Kubosh, who had thought of a verse from Proverbs when taking on the case — “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court” — later said he felt, at that moment, confirmed in his faith. The two officers who had been called as witnesses to the ticket had already left.
The courtroom stood as the jury exited, and Houston’s attorney thanked each juror for their service. Some smiled slightly as they filed out of the courthouse.
