Miami-Dade sets up to arrest homeless sex offenders by amending ordinance.
Miami-Dade county is considering amending Section 21-286 of the County Code – prohibiting overnight camping, eliminating a safeguard to protect against arrest, when applied to registered sex offenders or predators.
Currently, the County Code prevents overnight camping on County property. If an individual does not leave the property, they will be arrested for trespassing.
However, the Code also provides that a “Homeless person” shall first be offered an opportunity to go to a homeless shelter.
County officials, realizing that homeless shelters won’t take registrants, have found that “the requirement to offer homeless persons violating the prohibition an opportunity to go to a homeless shelter has proven unworkable, unduly burdensome on law enforcement, and has rendered the prohibition meaningless when the homeless person is a sexual predator, sexual offender or is otherwise ineligible to stay at homeless shelters.”
In other words… there’s no place for these individuals to go, so probation directs them to go sleep by the tracks – but if they sleep by the tracks they are told by police to leave. They face arrest if they don’t stay there, yet they face arrest if they do.
The proposed change to the ordinance has been added as “Agenda Item 4(a)” to the Board of County Commissioners to be heard on 11/7/2017. Information on the meeting is:
| Date/Time: | November 07, 2017 9:30 a.m. – | |
| Address: | 111 NW 1st Street 2nd Floor Commission Chambers Miami, FL 33128 |
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| Contact Person: | Daysha McBride | |
| Phone Number: | 305-375-1293 | |
And the proposed ordinance can be found here:
Overnight Camping Amendment – Bovo 11.7.2017 (002)
Please continue to monitor this post for a call to action.
Would it be worth contacting some one from
The United Nations Office?
It’s worth contacting any human rights organization that will listen.
Our government won’t listen to Human Rights Watch which after being shown a mountain of evidence agreed with us, but if it was about another countries human rights violations congress would be passing resolution after resolution
I live in San Diego Ca. we had this same problem here- the ACLU filed a motion in federal court-the judge ruled that a homeless person would be allowed to sleep in a public place from 9.00 pm to 5.30 am safe from police harassment.
Contact the
ACLU IN SAN DIEGO- GET A COPY OF THEIR MOTION-FILE IT IN FED/COURT IN MIAMI
So let me guess, let’s just keep challenging this in court and wait years for any changes to be made, in the meantime, all 270 of these RSO’s will get arrested just for breathing because they have no where to live. Sounds like a prime opportunity for some resistance. If this ordinance goes through, I say every one of those 270 people should stand their ground, chain themselves to the fences by the railroad tracks, chain themselves together, and force the police to come and arrest them. This is beyond insane. WHERE THE HELL IS THE ACLU???!!! Oh I forgot, this doesn’t have anything to do with taking down the Ten Commandments off public property, so they don’t want to to get involved. This country and it’s justice system and it’s extremely corrupt government, is a joke. We as the people of the US, have LOST our beloved country because we sat back and let lobbyists, corporations, corrupt legislators, good ole boys, and progressives take over this country while we all sat back and did nothing about it all the while having the attitude “oh well, if it doesn’t affect me or my family, it doesn’t matter.” Well folks, here we are. Welcome to the Prison States of America. And if you don’t have millions of dollars in your bank account to do anything about it, you’re f**ked. Which is about oh, 95% of us probably.
You have no clue what you are talking about. The ACLU is representing these people in a pending lawsuit. Does v. Miami-Dade.
And how long has the lawsuit been “pending”??? How long will that take???? In the meantime, those people will go to jail either way because the ordinance will go in effect and as you say, they’ll be damned if they move, damned if they don’t.
The lawsuit was filed in 2014. It was dismissed by the District Court and appealed to the 11th Circuit.
The 11th Circuit reversed it, remanding it back to the District Court where an amended complaint was filed less than a month ago (see: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/amended-complaint-filed-miami-dade-sorr-challenge/)
The answer to that complaint was filed last week.
Trial in this case is scheduled for the two-week period commencing Monday, March 19, 2018
We must never forget that today’s justice system is a joke. The bureaucrats may eventually be held accountable but only after the damage is done. When so many lives are at stake the case should be rushed to the front of the line…or do the justice folks even consider that these lives matter?
I don’t agree with MJ’s acertion that nothing is being done but I do understand his frustration with the injustice system. Seems like legislators can crank one of these life sucking laws out every week then it takes years to get them thrown out and it seems like we are winning challenges in other states but none of those are paying off here we need a victory for the sake of morale
ron book is a Coward.
I dare say that if you take away the Federal funds the states receive from the District of Criminals (a/k/a Washington D.C.), the registries would probably begin to fade away. It is and has always been about the money; never about public safety. Florida is but a lap dog to the feds, bowing to every whim just to get morsels at the trough. Here’s the kicker. Has anyone every reviewed Florida’s CAFR? It is a report that is not generally broadcast to the general public. The State invests in the secondary markets (e.g. Wall Street) and rakes in $$ BILLIONS $$ that goes into a slush fund separate from the general budget. And the State can do with these slush funds whatsoever it chooses including installing marble bathrooms in the Capitol such as what Marco Rubio allegedly did after he was first elected. (Gotta love that word: allegedly) The blip is that, while continuing to raise taxes and fees for services (including charging people a fee to register), the career criminals in Tallahassee fail to let the public in on this slush fund, and the people of Florida are none the wiser.
Additionally, if you conduct some research, you may discover that a bond is created on every inmate, and perhaps every court case, and the State trades those bonds on the financial markets, as well, and rakes in a windfall.
Can’t believe what I’m reading. What on earth will happen to these people if this goes through?
They will be given two choices; (1) stay where they are and get arrested, or (2) leave that compliant area and get arrested.