Maine

For those who hit a paywall: "In a video captured by a bystander on Monday, Portland police officers are seen literally kicking bags holding the personal belongings of unhoused residents to the curb. They then disposed of them in a garbage truck. The incident was recorded at a bus stop near the Portland Post Office, across the street from a section of Deering Oaks Park where many unhoused residents regularly gather. Activity within the park increased during the summer after daytime walk-in services at the Preble Street Resource Center were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a therapeutic shelter at the University of Southern Maine was shut down. With unhoused Portland residents left with nowhere to go, advocates have been calling on city officials to decriminalize outdoor camping. It was one of the key demands of the organizers behind the recent City Hall encampment. The video shows a masked police officer, wearing a truncheon on his belt, kicking possessions left near the bus stop, including backpacks and shoulder bags, into a pile on the curb. Shortly after, the masked officer and an unmasked bike cop are seen helping a sanitation worker throw blankets, a pillow, a shopping cart, a plastic chair and what appears to be a small tent into a garbage truck. Two bystanders are seen in the video approaching the officers, protesting the disposal of personal items, which the masked officers can be heard calling “trash.” “It’s not trash,” Portland resident Rachel Corey, a grad student who recorded the cell phone video, can be heard responding to the officers. She later posted the incident on Twitter. “To see your stuff thrown away, when it could have been very useful to your existence, is, I think, probably very traumatic,” Corey later told Beacon Several unhoused residents and social workers in Deering Oaks Park on Tuesday said the police regularly seize tents because camping isn’t allowed in city parks. They also frequently issue criminal trespassing orders to anyone gathering in the park after 10 p.m. City officials have maintained that there are still beds available in the city’s Oxford Street Shelter as well as in temporary shelters set up during the pandemic. But unhoused residents and their allies say the city’s shelter spaces, which are not staffed by social workers, are not designed to address the mental and physical needs of those who are the most susceptible to being chronically homeless, people with untreated trauma, underlying health issues and substance use disorder. Other unhoused residents have been barred from the city shelter, which sometimes issues criminal trespass orders for behavioral infractions."

And we won't be silent anymore