Three people charged with unauthorized camping were found guilty Wednesday after portraying their arrests as challenges to Denver’s ordinance against urban camping.
The three had argued during a jury trial that the law is a “survival ban.”
“When I was a Boy Scout, I went camping,” said Jerry Burton, who was ticketed after refusing to break camp near 27th and Arapahoe streets on Nov. 28. “When I was in the Marine Corps, it was called bivouacking. Camping is having fun. I was not camping, I was surviving that night.”
But in summing up their arguments for the Denver County Court jury, lawyers for the city said that the unauthorized camping ban wasn’t on trial, and the only question jurors should consider is whether they had violated a law.
“The case is not about the answer to homelessness,” senior Denver city attorney Brad Whitfield said. “Did they camp on public property? It is indisputable. We know they did.”
Burton, 55, Randy Russell, 56, and Denver Homeless Out Loud organizer Terese Howard, 31, all were cited on Nov. 28. In all, they were issued 10 tickets.
Burton and Russell both were convicted of two counts of unauthorized camping and one count of interfering with police. Howard was convicted of one count of unauthorized camping and one count of interfering with police, their lawyer Jason Flores-Williams said.
“I wish the city would go after environmental polluters and white-collar execs. Instead, they’re going after most poor and vulnerable among us,” Flores-Williams said. “It says a lot about our justice system.”
All three were sentenced to probation and community service at the city’s request, City Attorney Kristin Bronson said.
Bronson said the three intentionally got themselves arrested to protest the ordinance. But their actions were on trial — not the city’s ban.
“This case was about these three individuals violating the ordinance,” Bronson said. “The validity of the ordinance was not the issue.”
Denver police do their best to avoid writing citations for unauthorized camping. Since 2012, only 26 citations have been given. Police offer resources and give warnings first — something done in this case, Bronson said.
The citations followed hours during which police repeatedly ordered large groups of homeless to move, first from in front of Samaritan House Shelter at 24th, and Lawrence streets and Park Avenue West, and later at 27th and Arapahoe.
At the end of the chaotic day, the trio and a large number of other homeless people moved to a strip of grass outside the Denver City and County Building.
“We was just trying to find a place to rest,” Russell said of the move to the sidewalk in front of Denver’s most iconic building.
During the two-day trial, police officers said they had repeatedly told the three to move or be arrested and have their tents, sleeping bags and other property seized.
For weeks before that day, police had been conducting sweeps of the homeless, many of whom were living in a camp that lined the street in front of and near Samaritan House, a homeless shelter for women, Howard said.
There was another, smaller camp, at 27th and Arapahoe, where Burton, who has a degenerative bone disease, was staying. Howard, who has a home in Denver, said she began spending time with the homeless five years ago, and usually sleeps at home.
Many homeless refuse to stay in shelters because most don’t allow couples, or pets, and the conditions are poor, she said.
On that Monday, Howard was at Samaritan House when police arrived at about 7 a.m. and announced their presence by ordering the occupants to leave the sidewalk, Howard said.
“People became agitated because this was a place of survival, and now they didn’t know where to go,” she said.
Denver Public Works brought trash bins and personnel to clean the street at about 9 a.m.
Russell first refused to leave, but eventually went to 27th and Arapahoe. Before he left, he said, he watched an officer “kick” his tent down.
Howard also went to that location, where there were about 20 homeless people, including Burton. Police soon arrived and told them to move.
Burton, who said his physical condition worsens in bad weather, said the cold made it difficult for him to move. He told police that and they gave him a half-hour or so, and then ordered him out of the tent.
He was crawling backwards through the entrance when an officer grabbed him, stood him up and placed him on a chair that he had near his tent.
“It was cold and windy. As long as I was in that tent, I was warm,” he said.
Police took his tent and blanket and gave him a ticket, he said. They also ticketed Russell.
All three made their way to the City and County Building at about 8 p.m. Police came and ordered them to leave.
The cold was having a devastating effect on Burton. “My body was beginning to shut down, so I needed to get under a blanket.”
He laid down under a blanket and was soon surrounded by six officers telling him he had to move or go to jail.
He was given a ticket.
The former Marine called the Veterans Affairs hospital where he had received treatment and was told to come in. An ambulance arrived, but Burton refused to take it. The VA wouldn’t pay for the service, Howard said.
The paramedics left and a friend drove him to the hospital where he spent the night.
Russell and Howard were also ticketed at the City and County Building.
Whitfield told the jury that the three interfered with police by refusing to leave when ordered to.
Multiple police spent at least six hours trying to resolve the situation, he said.
Flores-Williams asked jurors to decide whether his clients were camping because they wanted to do it, or had been forced into it because they had nowhere to go.
