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2013-04-27 "Poverty Crime in Santa Cruz"
NOTE BY NORSE: Walter Lilly called me from jail several times in the last day, and whose account I'll be broadcasting tomorrow at 10 AM on Free Radio Santa Cruz (101.3 FM [http://tunein.com/radio/FRSC-s47254/]) His "crime" was failing to pay Sleeping Ban infractions and then being jailed under a Municipal Code passed a few years ago to by-pass the reality that Infractions crimes are normally not jail offenses.
Santa Cruz's MC 4.04.010(4) makes failure to appear in court or post bail for 3 infractions within 6 months (such as sleeping, sitting on the sidewalk, being on a bench for more than an hour, jaywalking) then all subsequent infraction offenses become misdemeanors at the city attorney's option punishable by up to 1 year in jail and $1000 fine. MC 4.04.015 makes such a failure to show or bail three infractions in six months a crime in and of itself punishable with the same penalties.
He was arrested and told he'd be held on bail he couldn't pay until trial, so in January he agreed to a stay-away order from Pacific Avenue to settle the cases in January. However when crossing Pacific Avenue (and perhaps hanging out there) he was accosted by cops who told him they'd not only arrest him for violating the order, but "throw away" all his possessions, by his account.
Some days ago he was arrested and goes to court next week with $10,000 bail for "violating probation", which is to say the deal his PD talked him into in January.
Poverty crime is no novelty in Santa Cruz, but a regular process these days.
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