A
90-year-old man could be going to jail for up to 60 days after feeding
homeless people and breaking a new law in Fort Lauderdale that bans
people from sharing their meals with members of the public.
Arnold
Abbott is likely to face a $500 fine and could be sentenced to spending
up to two months behind bars after police officers arrested him on
Sunday as he was handing out meals to homeless people in a park .
He
was arrested and charged along with two ministers from the Sanctuary
Church, which prepares hundreds of meals to dish out every week in their
kitchen.
Onlookers were outraged and shouted 'shame on you!' to officers.
At one point an officers yelled at Mr Abbott to 'drop that plate right now!' as if it were a loaded weapon.
'These are the poorest of the poor, they have nothing, they don't have a roof over their heads. How do you turn them away?'
'I don't do things to purposefully aggravate the situation,' said Mr Abbott to NBC News, 'I'm trying to work with the city. Any human has the right to help his fellow man.'
The issue of feeding the homeless has cropped up multiple times during Mr Abbots long life.
In 1999 he sued the City of Fort Lauderdale after he was banned from feeding the homeless on the beach.
A court ruled that such a law was against the Constitution.
This
new law which came into effect last week and is also being looked at by
other cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, and
Philadelphia.
Undeterred Mr Abbott, says he in planning to sue the city once again and intends to continue his kind-hearted deeds.
The
new regulations require groups to be at least 500 feet away from
residential properties and food sites are restricted to one per city
block, but charities have criticized the rules as forms of implementing
social cleansing.
Michael
Stoops, community organised at the National Coalition for the Homeless,
told NBC News: 'Economic development and tourism don't mesh well with
homeless folks and the agencies that serve them.'
No comments:
Post a Comment