From the Rose Law Group Reporter Growlery
By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
(growlery [archaic] a place to retreat to, alone, when ill-humored)
Over the past several years, one story has brought more reader comments than any other published by Rose Law Group Reporter. It was about the convenience store employee who was fired for giving a cold and homeless man a free cup of coffee.
I have a feeling what happened in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. will surpass the free coffee article in outrage.
Cops there arrested a 90-year-old man last weekend for feeding homeless people — an act of charity he’s been doing regularly for the past 23 years.
The Broward-Palm Beach New Times reported at least four police cruisers and a half dozen uniformed cops were waiting for Arnold Abbott and two pastors when they arrived at a local Florida park Sunday afternoon to distribute food to more than 100 homeless and hungry people. Abbot, the founder of the service organization Love Thy Neighbor, managed to dole out four meals before he was placed in handcuffs and issued a summons.
“An officer said, ‘Drop that plate right now — like I had a weapon,'” Abbott reportedly said.
Are you kidding? This couldn’t happen in America, could it?
The men now face up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine after being charged under a new city ordinance banning public food sharing, one of several new rules to crackdown on homelessness.
Question: Would you vote for Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler if you lived there?
“I’m not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in the city of Fort Lauderdale,” Seiler told the Sun-Sentinel. “Providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive.”
I couldn’t write a better conclusion than what protestors opposed to the ordinance chanted outside local government offices:
“Blood, blood, blood on your hands. Shame, shame, shame on Seiler. Hey, Jack, what do you say? How many homeless did you starve today?”
