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  1. #21
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting zoinbergs
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    Oh boy, I am hesitant to agree with you that no other damages could be sought. After simply googling "damages in a 42 USC" I clicked on the first two links. Perhaps you are mistaken?
    No, I am not mistaken. The quote you provided laid it out: without compensatory damages, all you get is nominal damages of $1. The law authorizes (but does not mandate) the court to award attorney’s fees. But that does not help YOU get any money. You only get attorney’s fees if you had to hire an attorney to bring the case, and then of course the awarded attorney’s fees just end up offsetting what you paid the lawyer. Punitive damages are a possibility, but to win those requires that you prove that the officer’s conduct was “motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others.” Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 56, 103 S. Ct. 1625, 1640, 75 L. Ed. 2d 632 (1983). The burden is on you to prove that. So if the officers were simply mistaken, misinformed, etc you won’t get punitive damages. If they thought it was a median on a public highway and it turns out they were wrong, that’s not something that will get you punitive damages. You’ve not said anything here that suggests the officers acted with evil motive or intent, or reckless or callous indifference to your Constitutional rights. That being the case, you’d likely spend more money to litigate this than you’d get, assuming you can win the case. Your lawyer might come out OK, but that’s not a lot of help to you.

  2. #22

    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting Taxing Matters
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    So if the officers were simply mistaken, misinformed, etc you won’t get punitive damages. If they thought it was a median on a public highway and it turns out they were wrong, that’s not something that will get you punitive damages. You’ve not said anything here that suggests the officers acted with evil motive or intent, or reckless or callous indifference to your Constitutional rights.
    So for the 29th Street Mall private drives, how did the police arrive at the conclusion themselves that it was a public highway? Are they not obligated to know that / find that out first, before arresting somebody on those elements and definitions? Them "simply being mistaken" or "turning out to be wrong" (oh how innocent that all sounds) after being pointed to plainly exculpatory information that should likely otherwise lead a prudent officer to further investigate *first* into satisfying such definitions and elements, as opposed to just starting off charging, may very well be an evil motive or intent. (I don't know.) But what I do know is that the officer that day started off by saying "panhandling in the roadway," and when we asked him which ordinance that was, he had to admit that he didn't even know which one it was that he had stopped us on, and had to otherwise look it up in the middle of detaining us. Sounds like he didn't know jack diddly squat, and had never been challenged before on the subject, and just wanted to otherwise remove another homeless guy from the middle of "the street" after already doing so for many years but without any due process of anybody prior holding him to any sort of fire over the actual definitions over. Even worse, there are multiple other private drives that are even more likely not public highways (like entrances to malls or shopping centers) that we've also been picked up on, whereby the officers in those cases SAID 100% IDENTICAL WORDS when detaining us, namely that we were "panhandling on a public road" -- when we were CLEARLY not. Kinda scary, I think, that they all happen to use IDENTICAL wording, in five or six different jurisdictions, when the word "panhandling" is nowhere to be found in ANY of there municipal codes, whatsoever, nor were we ever in any obvious way on any public roads. Having proof now (as in we happen to have caught on audio each and every event) a half a dozen or so identical, and I mean, identically-used language cases, all starting off with the exact words "panhandling in the roadway" -- this only leads me to believe that there is, in fact, a very evil, very reckless, very indifferent homeless / poverty hate crime motive and intent carried by these officers, that has gone all but unaddressed in our system, for like, ever, that is only *finally* getting exposed. Also, don't forget all the straight up lies on police reports that we have caught! Sound like there's plenty of evil motive or intent to go around that should now be addressed in court.

    Also, what about pain and suffering? My brother and I have been tossed around like salads, and had really needed the locations in question that we were human trafficked off of to help get us back on our feet, only to have even more paperwork and wasted time stack on top of our previous paperwork and wasted time, all for exercising our first amendment rights. Like I said, we have dozens of likely valid 42 USC claims now, all of which we have been forced to get behind on, time and time again.

    Also, regardless of what damages we get, how on earth are we supposed to turn back the dial on these guys and ensure that other homeless people don't have their rights infringed? Simply asking them, or their internal affairs, doesn't seem to be working. There is, what I believe to be, a VERY serious problem of racism creeping into our system right now. I don't know of any better way to address it than to take the dirty, racist cops that we've caught so far, straight to court, in order to make an example of them. To martyr them. If you have any better ideas, I'm all ears. But of course, I've already heard the classic "just go get a job" statement, time and time again, so if you (or others) plan on telling me that, I only further ask, what does getting a job have to with stopping racist cops from picking people up illegally?


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    Quote Quoting Highwayman
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    Now you just have to check every law for definitions of "public highway". It may very well be considered to be a public highway.
    I forgot to mention... this sounds to me like something THE COP SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING UP and confirming before even picking me up on said definition in the first place. I almost fell for what could be considered a burden of proof switch-a-roo in order to take the limelight away from said cop. Why am I supposed to be doing what sounds like HIS freaking job? Another example of guilty until proven innocent?


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    Quote Quoting jk
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    Quote Quoting zoinbergs
    I don't like making such accusations, but you have literally done or said NOTHING that resembles holding that business owner who put up that fence illegally to any sort of fire FOR STEALING PUBLIC LAND
    and now it comes full circle. You have no idea what you are talking about. You don’t know who actually owns the land in question but you also refuse to accept that both private owners and public governments have the right to restrict access to lands under their control. Until you accept that any further conversation is useless.
    Going over our privious posts, I apologize jk, as I thought you were talking about the 29th St Mall private drives. (This is my fault, as I shouldn't be getting so off topic in my own thread).

    But anyways, I did want to correct my response to your response, in order to keep that conversation accurate, and so I say this:

    Regarding the property that Eric Holsapple stole by putting up a fence without a permit, I know EXACTLY what I am talking about. IT'S NOT THAT DIFFICULT. I know with 100% certainty who owns the land -- the general public does -- BECAUSE IT EXISTS WITHIN THE 100 FOOT RIGHT OF WAY KNOWN AS REMINGTON STREET. It's been public land, A PUBLIC STREET, and nothing more, without question, for the last 143 years, according to the city's good old fashioned town plat, which is available for download via their citydocs website, as well as if you visit their survey department to see in person. I know all this with 100% certainty because I was the one who went down to the city zoning department and requested that the fence get taken down. I was the one who was told by my own city chief construction inspector that he sent out a survery and confirmed such things for me. I was the one who was told by him personally that it would be taken down. I was the one who obtained a copy from him of said takedown notice once it was sent. THE LAND IN QUESTION IS GOOD OLD FASHIONED PUBLIC FREAKING PROPERTY. Your public property, my public property, everybody's public property. SIMPLE AS THAT. Sure, private owners and public governments have the right to restrict access to land under their control. THE NEARBY PRIVATE OWNER DOES NOT ENJOY ANY SORT OF "CONTROL" WHATSOEVER OVER PURE PUBLIC STREET WITHOUT A VALID PERMIT. The permit process is quite simple, and can be found in the city's municipal code, starting with Division 3 - Encroachments. The exact violation Eric Holsapple committed was a 23-84 violation. The definition of the public right-of-way that explains what is included in said 100 feet is also quite simple to understand, and can also be found in the city's municipal code, namely subsection 17-42.

    Seriously, and I am actually being serious here, how is it so difficult for you to wrap your mind around the idea that somebody (it could be anybody, as in it doesn't even have to be a nearby business owner) can steal PURE PUBLIC LAND by simply erecting a fence around it, without first applying for a valid permit to do so, legally? No hoopla. No mumbo jumbo. No witchcraft here. Just your run of the mill hate crime (since he did it to keep the homeless out of the area, and had even fully admitted so in the email I obtained between him and the city on the topic).

    Geez. I honestly thought you had looked at the plats I offered in that forum, or read through my previous posts on the topic. I didn't know you *still* thought that I somehow didn't know what I was talking about. Wowzers.

  3. #23
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting zoinbergs
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    Wrong. Internal affairs policies CLEARLY state that they must also investigate criminal, statutory allegations that their police officers may have committed. So, with that being said, any time I witnessed a crime (submitting ACTUALLY VERIFIABLE false documents for recording, for instance, as well as ACTUALLY lying against bodycam footage, as well as committing ACTUAL perjury in court) I expected those allegations to be honestly and fairly investigated. And you know what they tried to pull when I reported such things? They either "ratified" that what I was reporting was not illegal behavior, or they did exactly what you just advocated in your post, and tried to pull that they are "only responsible for investigating policy violations committed by their officers." You want an ugly example? The whole Denver Internal Affairs, and even their internal affairs (the Office Of The Independent Monitor) and even the Denver DA too, all decided, likely because of an image problem, that they would rather "ratify" that Denver University security guards have Terry-like reasonable suspicion powers to detain for investigations within their own property, than take my complaint seriously. I kid you not. The facts were clearly laid out, to which nobody even disputed. One night security guards impersonated cops and detained my brother and I, and ran our names without cops present, whereby they fooled us into thinking they were cops, and had even said they were cops when we first asked them, whereby we only find out after the fact that they were in fact not cops, to which we immediately reported the impersonation and false imprisonment charges to the local Denver police, to which, you guessed it, we got shafted all the way up the chains, and have yet (it's on our list of things to do) report to the next highest level up, the only level left to go, the Denver mayor's office, that everybody below him just gave security guards police powers to detain, and won't do anything about whatsoever.



    Wow, have you not read any of my previous posts? Easier said than done. And I don't want to go it alone. And I have a BUNCH of these cases that I got backed up on. And I can't get help from attorneys without having the evidence / police reports / affidavits / etc. laid out first for them to work with. I don't think you understand how "witness tampered" I am. Between my brother and I, we got backed up on OVER TWO DOZEN false imprisonments over the last two years, which if you pile that on top of being homeless, and defamed by everybody and their mothers, we don't have many resources to work with in the first place. We have a statute of limitations of two years that we can still make most of our filings within. But your picture perfect world that YOU may be living in, others don't have such a luxury of living in, and have to work with what they've got, which in our cases, is VERY little. And I have a serious stomach condition that all but disables me, so I don't have much time in my day that I can spend on both getting resources to survive, and then getting resources to file lawsuits with. Time and money are tight, and if I knew of a better route / better tools / better resources to work with, you better believe I would have been taking advantage of them by now!



    Yeah, not EVERYTHING must always *automatically* end up in court. There is plenty of case law out there that does explain your rationale, that an officer need not conduct a "mini trial" in the streets, once he has arguable probable cause, but there is also plenty of case law out there that explains how officers totally and completely lacked arguable probable in the streets because of how they had attempted to ignore plainly exculpatory, non-controversial facts in the streets - facts that are THEIR JOB to collect fairly and appropriately first, before sending something to court. And a lot times, my brother and I aren't even laying out exculpatory "facts" for the cops to weigh for or against in their probable cause determinations, we are usually informing them of ENTIRELY MISSING ELEMENTS TO THEIR CRIMINAL ALLEGATIONS, like for instance the complete lack of being informed FIRST by a business owner before being issued a valid trespassing citation by the cop. (Yeah, this has actually happened. The cop arrested my brother for trespassing without even figuring out if he was not wanted on the property first). The courts have been VERY CLEAR to rule that an officer completely lacks arguable probable if he doesn't even establish what are called "essential" or "critical" elements of an offense. Otherwise, in your world, cops would have free reign to pick up anybody on anything, and could never be wrong, could never be held to any fire, whatsoever, period, nada, zip, zilch, zero! Like I've said before, the bar for probable cause is not THE FLOOR.



    I have met DAs and judges and cops and juries and public defenders that have all proven to be absolutely retarded, on dozens of levels, that I would have to for the most part disagree with you. They have all proven in my experience to systematically deny defendants rights, treat them as guilty until proven innocent, not accept their innocence when they prove it, not respect basic rules of law like hearsay, pretend that certain things weren't said, rubber stamping plainly conclusory warrants that lack critical elements to an offense, etc. etc. etc. etc. I have determined that most of the problem lies in a type of yuppie racket / mafia / gang / etc. that nobody (looks like you too) want to admit exists, or perhaps, don't even have access to discovering, because you guys are all stuck seeing the picture from the outside, without the necessary tools / experience / etc. to see it from the inside (like I have been able to). Ultimately, I believe you are all suffering from a form of "statistics fraud" that you certainly won't be able to get out of, because you're stuck on the inside of!



    Ahh, the age old argument that "they chose." Yep, they sure did. Because everybody "chooses" to be on the streets. Great way to rationalize an entire group of people that may very well be suffering because of all sorts of things like unequal opportunity, rising costs of living, TORTS committed against them in their past to which they struggle to bounce back from, etc. etc. etc. With all this opportunity around us, all these jobs available, let's just blame the homeless for their own, fully informed bad decisions, and not go up to them and talk to them and figure out what makes them tick, why they "choose" what they do, etc. etc. etc. How many "homeless" people have you spoken to that you claim "choose" to be homeless? Or are you gathering your statistics from a ten foot pole? How do you know that they are indeed *simply* not willing to "put in the effort to go to work every day" (and are otherwise fully capable human beings) and they are not otherwise severely mentally ill people with lack of motivation type of syndromes caused by a life of pain and suffering and unequal opportunity etc. etc. etc. You seem to be pretty far separated from them, as I see many out there, especially with your self admitted 60 hour work weeks. I highly doubt you have collected enough fair and balanced statistics in order to safely start bunching all your city's homeless / transients into one big bucket called "LAZY."



    Right, because people just do things that they absolutely know are wrong. Just like me and my kleptomania back in the day. Because people aren't mentally ill, or have been taught the wrong things, or have other psychological problems that cause them to rationalize away their behavior. Tell me something, think of a crime, say, killing your neighbor's dog. You know that's wrong, right? Now tell me that you simply "choose" to not go outside and kill your neighbor's dog, right now. I don't think that's a simple "choice" now is it. If you *truly* know that something is wrong to do, you can't, and won't do it. The opposite is true, I believe, for anybody who commits a crime. Sure, they may think that it's *okay* to do something that *society* has deemed wrong, to which they are aware that society demonizes, but I don't think they truly *know* that it is wrong, like how you and I know that it is wrong -- OTHERWISE THEY PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! According to you, I *knew* it was wrong to steal back in the day, but I still did it. How is that even logically possible? But now I don't steal. Why so? What changed? Today, I won't -- I say can't -- steal, because I TRULY know that it is wrong to do. Or maybe I now *care* that it is wrong to do. Or maybe I just learned what tools are necessary to not try and rationalize away such behavior. Go ahead, keep thinking that you could easily kill your neighbor's dog, but that you somehow "choose" not to because you know that it is wrong. I don't think that you are "choosing" not to do it. I think that you have a *more perfect knowledge* that it is wrong, and that YOU WON'T / CAN'T DO SOMETHING THAT YOU TRULY KNOW IS WRONG. So, stop holding people who haven't figured such things out to such an impossible fire. Most (if not all?) people who break the law don't need to be PUNISHED for it, they need to be HELPED for it. They need to be REHABILITATED for it. They just need some serious lesson teaching and a correct ego collapse on the subject. They need somebody to HELP them obtain a more correct world view on the subject. They DO NOT need somebody to ostracize, victim shame, and straight up DEMONIZE them for it.



    Okay, let's define what an actual "hate crime" is. According to the FBI's website, a hate crime is defined as a "criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity."

    Now let's look at what Eric Holsapple did (the property manager talked about in my other thread who put up a fence near, but not on, his property, to which he did so without first obtaining a permit to do). He committed:

    1) criminal offense (namely, a 23-84 violation of the city's municipal code, which is a classic misdemeanor), and

    2) against a person (namely in that case, a group of people, the homeless), to which

    3) was motivated in whole or in part by his bias against that group of people.

    Here's the complete email chain I obtained between him and the City Of Fort Collins, if you'd like to read it:

    Hate Crime Email Chain Between Eric Holsapple And The City Of Fort Collins


    Now you may not think that "homeless people" are a protected status of people, but I dare argue that it now is, or has at least now become one, by how people have started stealing land in the name of unlawfully removing said people from said land. So you tell me, jk, is what Eric Holsapple did, NOT A HATE CRIME? Be honest now. I want to know your answer.



    Sure, for the 29th Street Mall private drives specifically in question, I don't know *precisely* if they have been declared "public highways" for the purposes enforcing their municipal median code against, but I do know that they are private properties, with signs on them that say "private street, no city maintenance," and that other cops have totally and already given the a-okay for me to be on, and so, I at least have a sneaking suspicion that they are *not* public highways for the purposes of anti-median enforcement. And I have a VERY strong suspicion that the other FIVE private properties that I have been picked up on, claiming that those were all public properties outright, are almost certainly NOT "public highways" whatsoever, to which I have an even stronger suspicion that cops should know their jurisdiction about, in order to not pick people up on with some sort of anti-median ordinance. BTW, so you know, I call in all the time to their police dispatches (including Boulder's) and visit their city zoning, GIS, and city manager's offices (like, a sting, if you will) posing as an anti-abortionist from a church looking to hold a sign on their private drives, of which I always get friendly and consistent answers from them all telling me that I have every right to do, and that they and their police "would never touch me" for doing. So again, nobody wants to admit that there may exist a full subjugation of people (the homeless) now treated as full on second-class citizens, that nobody seems to care about upholding the rights of.



    Oh man, are you serious? What "laws" have I broken? Do you see me convicted of ANYTHING yet? What a stretch of the imagination. Just because you think "the cops had probable cause" -- now I'm breaking the law? So far I have 1) jumped a fence from a right of way into a right of way, and have had said trespassing charges dropped because I was charged with trespassing into private property when in fact I was in public property, and 2) held a sign on private property that is difficult to argue is public property for the purposes of enforcing "no median on streets" municipal code ordinances against.

    If I turn out to be right on the 29th Street Mall private drives not being considered "public highways" are you then willing to admit that your cops are kidnapping homeless people from perfectly legitimate locations without a lick of lawful justification? It seems like you would just love to keep thinking that it is I who is in the wrong, so that you don't have to hold your cops to the fire. Tell me, jk, and let's be honest, should the cops that night have held Eric Holsapple responsible for violating a 23-84 municipal code misdemeanor violation, or will you continue to forever look the other way on that one?
    Who is Eric holsapple?


    as to internal affairs; you didn’t alter anything I said. Their investigations are still intrernally held and they deal with internal functions of the police force in question. You are nkt entitled to the results and you have no power to reauire prosecution for any possible crimes.

    Regarding the property that Eric Holsapple stole by putting up a fence without a permit, I know EXACTLY what I am talking about. IT'S NOT THAT DIFFICULT. I know with 100% certainty who owns the land -- the general public does -- BECAUSE IT EXISTS WITHIN THE 100 FOOT RIGHT OF WAY KNOWN AS REMINGTON STREET.
    well, right there you have proven yourself ignorant of the situation. If it is a right of way the property is not owned by any governmental entity. A right of way is an easement upon private land.

    classes of protected people is defined in law. When you find homelessness listed as a protected class you’re one step closer to arguing your point. Until then it’s the odd ramblings of a person that simply doesn’t have a clue.

  4. #24

    Question Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting jk
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    Who is Eric holsapple?
    Oh my goodness. Read my posts. You clearly aren't. You are going to have to CLICK ON THE ACTUAL LINK that I have referenced multiple times now. The hate crime email chain PDF document link. He is the property manager who installed the fence, without the permit, WITHIN THE 100 FOOT WIDE PUBLIC STREET KNOWN AS REMINGTON STREET, IN FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, USA, EARTH, THE UNIVERSE.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    as to internal affairs; you didn’t alter anything I said. Their investigations are still intrernally held and they deal with internal functions of the police force in question. You are nkt entitled to the results and you have no power to reauire prosecution for any possible crimes.
    Are you kidding me? According to their very own Fort Collins Police Services internal affairs policy, they say that it is absolutely their duty and obligation and policy to investigate criminal allegations made against their police officers. Sure, if they don't want to take, report on, or otherwise hold their own officers responsible for actual crimes committed by them, depending on how hanus and obvious the crimes are, if they turn out to be true, I could only imagine that they themselves would now be committing statutory crimes right alongside them, like racketeering activities and co-conspiring, which would then need to be reported on up the chains, like to the chief of police and eventually the mayor.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    well, right there you have proven yourself ignorant of the situation. If it is a right of way the property is not owned by any governmental entity. A right of way is an easement upon private land.
    Oh. My. Gosh. There are multiple legal definitions in existence for the word phrase "right of way." I would expect you to know this after 30,000 posts in a legal forum. I say right of way because the Fort Collins Municipal Code 17-42 refers to and defines their public streets as "the public right of way." (go look it up yourself). I am NOT talking about the *other * commonly known definition of right of way, namely what you keep referring to, of "easements" on private property. I'm talking about the 100 FOR WIDE PUBLIC STREET KNOWN AS REMINGTON. Not easements. STREETS. PUBLIC FREAKING STREETS THAT IN MY TOWN ARE A STANDARD 100 FEET WIDE.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    classes of protected people is defined in law. When you find homelessness listed as a protected class you’re one step closer to arguing your point. Until then it’s the odd ramblings of a person that simply doesn’t have a clue.[
    Oh man, if you don't think "homeless hate crimes" exist just because they aren't officially on the books yet, you got some serious issues that are far beyond the reach of this forum. With your logic, black people weren't listed as a protected class either at one point in time, whereby I could only imagine if you lived in that day and age, you would be saying the same thing about them. "Yep, sure we can commit hate crimes against black people, because they're not listed as a protected class yet in our law books!

    Seriously, get real. My brother and I have collected dozens of situations now where "the homeless" are regularly discriminated against, if nothing else, for simply being poor. Hey, I got one for you, go look up in YouTube "homeless restaurant sting" - it's pretty good at showing how plainly obvious homeless discrimination has become.

  5. #25
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    You can call any crime you want a hate crime. For it to fall under the current hate crime laws the object of the crime must fall within the definition provided by law. I haven’t seen homeless people’s in any such definition.

    And you are correct, at one point, not all that long ago, it was impossible to commit a hate crime against a black person because “hate crime” invokes a special set of laws. So show me where any hate crime law applies to homeless people because they are homeless people.


    For legal purposes it is not unlawful to discriminate against homeless or poor people. Most people discriminate against something or somebody every day and almost none of it is in violation of any law. I wore my green socks today instead of the black socks. That’s discrimination and it isn’t unlawful.

    Right of way; you can define it any way you wish. The definition that matters is in a highway right of way it is an easement for public use upon private property. So, who legally holds title to the land you were arrested for trespassing upon?


    Even if the municipality or state owns it, there is no theft of land but even if there was, you don’t get to stand in the place of the municipal powers and attempt to enforce the ownership of the municipality.

  6. #26

    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting jk
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    You can call any crime you want a hate crime. For it to fall under the current hate crime laws the object of the crime must fall within the definition provided by law. I haven’t seen homeless people’s in any such definition.

    And you are correct, at one point, not all that long ago, it was impossible to commit a hate crime against a black person because “hate crime” invokes a special set of laws. So show me where any hate crime law applies to homeless people because they are homeless people.

    For legal purposes it is not unlawful to discriminate against homeless or poor people. Most people discriminate against something or somebody every day and almost none of it is in violation of any law. I wore my green socks today instead of the black socks. That’s discrimination and it isn’t unlawful.
    Well when land starts getting stolen in plain daylight and the group targeted is without disagreement a class of people identified as "homeless or transient" it sounds like legislation needs to start writing better definitions for said class of people. Call them homeless / transient / poor / whatever you want to call them. Whatever reason Eric Holsapple stole public land in the name of, I say it's a good place to now start writing legislation around.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    Right of way; you can define it any way you wish. The definition that matters is in a highway right of way it is an easement for public use upon private property. So, who legally holds title to the land you were arrested for trespassing upon?
    The Fort Collins City Municipality owns it.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    Even if the municipality or state owns it, there is no theft of land
    Sure there is. Some guy put up a fence without a permit. He stole public land.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    but even if there was, you don’t get to stand in the place of the municipal powers and attempt to enforce the ownership of the municipality.
    I never said I was "standing in the place of the municipal powers" and "attempting to enforce the ownership of the municipality" -- whatever that means in legal speak.

    But if I were to entertain your thoughts, I'd say that I am a citizen of the city, or the public at large, that deserves to not have my rights infringed, just like everybody else, and if my right to use my own land is being infringed upon, I would feel right to "stand in the place of the municipal powers," because I believe I would technically be an extension of the municipality at that point.

    And if my own Chief Construction Inspector can then "enforce the ownership of the municipality" by sending a takedown notice for the stolen area, which I had him do *before* I jumped into said area BTW, just to be on the extra safe side even though I shouldn't even have to be, and if he then tells me, when asked, that the area, without a permit, is just "regular old right of way," then I see no reason why the area need be further restricted from public use. I imagine that if he wanted to hang out in said area himself, that he would be perfectly within his right to do. And so why would I not enjoy the same? Without a valid permit, why must anybody entertain the idea that the area is "restricted" when one needs A VALID PERMIT in order to substantiate in the first place, any right of the person to actually *restrict* it? Without a permit, I believe that the inherent rights of the land are naturally restored. Why uphold and restrict stolen land when we all know it's not theirs to restrict?

    So, I guess the ultimate question is, is nobody allowed to hang out behind that fence in the mean time, for the ten day grace period the city gives them to take it down within? Because if so, that sounds like there's a restriction to use the property, which would, I imagine, invoke the need to restrict with, umm, a valid permit! No permit = no restriction.

    Let's say for arguments sake that the cops saw the fence themselves first, and did their jobs to report it just like I did, and had received word back for the zoning department that in fact, a municipal code violation was occurring, and a takedown notice sent. Now, the cops know with confidence that they would not be able to satisfy their element of "unlawful" if they saw somebody behind the fence. I *think* that in the mean time, they could be smart enough to not arrest every person they see behind there, knowing full well that they would have very little success convicting any of them of trespassing, considering they would be completely lacking in their ability to prove that anybody behind there would be "not licensed, invited, or otherwise privileged" to be in there. Without being able to point to A PERMIT that otherwise revokes, what I believe to be, the inherent and implied license, invitation, and privilege that would be there if the fence weren't there, I see no reason why they would need to stick up for the person who stole it in the mean time, and restrict access to the area in the mean time. It's like, they already restored the rights of the general area to the public by issuing a 23-84 violation to the one who put up the fence illegally. And the city's municipal code says its a misdemeanor for every day that it's up during the grace period. So why on earth should we give in to the thief, when we should be taking the land back for ourselves! The fence doesn't determine the right to use the land (or restrict its use) the permit does. No permit = no restriction. Like the other guy said in the last post of the other forum, this has nothing to do with a fence. The permit restricts the land (or doesn't). If the area has no permit to "turn it into something else" - then what is the area other than back to good old right of way? Why entertain the business owner in the mean time? The cops are supposed to be enforcing permits, not enforcing fences.

  7. #27
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting zoinbergs
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    Another example of guilty until proven innocent?
    The concept of innocent until proven guilty applies at trial. The cop doesn’t have to prove you guilty before arresting you or issuing you a citation. The cop merely needs probable cause to believe you committed an offense. That is not, as I think you yourself have already acknowledged, not a very high standard for the cop to meet.

    As to the issue of resolving the problems of the homeless, I do not have any easy answers to that. If there were easy answers for it we’d have tried them by now and fixed it. I have lived in a number of large cities that each have had significant populations of homeless persons. These populations present significant problems for the municipalities because the there is no single cause of homelessness nor any one single approach to homelessness that works for everyone. Some are people just down on their luck. Some are people with substance abuse problems. Some are people with mental health problems. Some are people with various physical disabilities. Being homeless presents a person with a whole lot of challenges that many people who have never been homeless do not really appreciate, which makes the advice of some to, as you put it, just “go get a job” a really difficult thing to do even if the homeless person is really eager to do that.

    While many people do not really understand the challenges and problems of being homeless, they do understand what they see and experience. And they do not like seeing homeless people sleeping on the streets or in parks, they do not like the occasional homeless person who accosts them for money (which, while not done by a majority of homeless, happens often enough that people associate that with all homeless people), they do not like homeless people wandering into their businesses asking to use facilities or for food. So they pressure the city to do something about it, and the result ends up being a kind of two fold strategy: on the one hand they set up shelters and provide other services for the homeless, and cities vary widely at how extensive these programs are provided; and on the other hand they try to discourage the homeless from even being there in the city. The police are involved in both strategies, referring homeless persons to available services in some instances and also using a variety of municipal ordinance violations to cite them or arrest them with the hope that they’ll get tired of the treatment they get for these violations and go someplace else. And it appears that you have been facing some of the latter strategy. The police certainly should at least make sure they have probable cause for those violations, but even when they do, that strategy for dealing with homeless persons is not particularly effective at dealing with the problem. At best it just shifts the problem to some other city. it certainly does not help the homeless person at all. While I am sympathetic with the challenges faced by the homeless, I am certainly no expert on what should be done and have no good solutions to offer that have not already been tried. I wish I did.

  8. #28
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    If the municipality owns the land it isn’t a row but realistically most roads are row’s and the land held by private entities.
    State and federal highways being the typical exception although where the state or federal highway overlaps local roadways it can go either way.


    But if it owned by the municipality there could be an easement for the private entity that allowed him to do what he did. You really do not have all the facts or you are misconstruing what you do read

    Fencing off the property would not amount to theft. Stealing land is pretty tough to do. It’s pretty heavy. There are myriad other laws that may apply but theft isn’t in that list.

  9. #29

    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    Quote Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    The concept of innocent until proven guilty applies at trial. The cop doesn’t have to prove you guilty before arresting you or issuing you a citation. The cop merely needs probable cause to believe you committed an offense. That is not, as I think you yourself have already acknowledged, not a very high standard for the cop to meet.
    The reason I keep talking about "guilty until proven innocent" is because I believe it is a mentality that I have caught the cops holding in the streets, whereby they pick people up without any evidence whatsoever, but still *feel* like they are doing their job, because they're getting "their guy" or something like that, and by treating them as a second class citizen, they are shifting the burden of investigation onto the guy, whereby they think that "if the guy is really innocent, he'll come forward and exonerate himself" or something to that effect. The prime example I use is when I was false arrested for not showing a receipt at a Walmart. Walmart is attempting, with the "help" of all of it's minions, to "ratify" that if everybody would just show their receipt (think of a gang or a racket here all banning together) they can now safely believe that anybody who doesn't show a receipt *must* be guilty, and now needs to "prove their innocence" on the way out. This has shifted the burden of proof onto what they believe to be "the guilty ones" -- and has now relieved them of otherwise performing normal investigations at normal points of interest, like with LP officers in the isles first needing to observe the actual illegal behavior of shoplifting in order to start apprehending over. One day I didn't show my receipt, and a cop was present, to which he demanded that I show my receipt, and detained me for not doing so, whereby I simply said that I was "exercising my rights," to which he said, hoopla, you're "more likely guilty than innocent now" and must be detained while we go see if you paid or not (but again, without a shred of reasonable suspicion to start off with the right to detain me over -- as in, simply not showing a receipt, and nothing more (the employees never claimed I didn't pay) doesn't provide a scintilla of evidence of guilt because of how it could *just as easily* be evidence of innocence, without any further investigation whatsoever on anybody's part) whereby he then had two employees go perform some rushed, failed investigation for him into if I had paid or not, whereby they came back and told him (hearsay) that I had not paid for my item (I have no idea how they came to THAT conclusion) whereby I was then (falsely) arrested for shoplifting, without any *actual* evidence that I had *actually* shoplifted, whereby I then waited for them to issue me a citation before producing my receipt (yes, I paid for my item) whereby they got really butthurt after that about the whole situation, but were otherwise reasonably embarrassed by it, whereby they had to then cancel the whole thing and let me go, and then deal with internal affairs and their bosses over.

    Quote Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    As to the issue of resolving the problems of the homeless, I do not have any easy answers to that. If there were easy answers for it we’d have tried them by now and fixed it. I have lived in a number of large cities that each have had significant populations of homeless persons. These populations present significant problems for the municipalities because the there is no single cause of homelessness nor any one single approach to homelessness that works for everyone. Some are people just down on their luck. Some are people with substance abuse problems. Some are people with mental health problems. Some are people with various physical disabilities. Being homeless presents a person with a whole lot of challenges that many people who have never been homeless do not really appreciate, which makes the advice of some to, as you put it, just “go get a job” a really difficult thing to do even if the homeless person is really eager to do that.

    While many people do not really understand the challenges and problems of being homeless, they do understand what they see and experience. And they do not like seeing homeless people sleeping on the streets or in parks, they do not like the occasional homeless person who accosts them for money (which, while not done by a majority of homeless, happens often enough that people associate that with all homeless people), they do not like homeless people wandering into their businesses asking to use facilities or for food. So they pressure the city to do something about it, and the result ends up being a kind of two fold strategy: on the one hand they set up shelters and provide other services for the homeless, and cities vary widely at how extensive these programs are provided; and on the other hand they try to discourage the homeless from even being there in the city. The police are involved in both strategies, referring homeless persons to available services in some instances and also using a variety of municipal ordinance violations to cite them or arrest them with the hope that they’ll get tired of the treatment they get for these violations and go someplace else. And it appears that you have been facing some of the latter strategy. The police certainly should at least make sure they have probable cause for those violations, but even when they do, that strategy for dealing with homeless persons is not particularly effective at dealing with the problem. At best it just shifts the problem to some other city. it certainly does not help the homeless person at all. While I am sympathetic with the challenges faced by the homeless, I am certainly no expert on what should be done and have no good solutions to offer that have not already been tried. I wish I did.
    One of the main problems I see with "homelessness" that seems to only be making the problems worse, are these "blanket policies" (much like the receipt checking one above) where now the burden is being shifted, in an effort to "save money" on policing, but by doing so we are not addressing the "root causes" of those who "break" said blanket policies. Now we have a bunch of people trying to "ratify" that if they all just "give up" their right to use the parks at night, for instance, than everybody who uses a park at night *must be guilty* and can now be treated as such / kicked out / etc. However 1) everybody knows that being in a park, all by itself, does not necessarily infringe on anybody's rights, if you're not committing any other underlying crimes against anybody -- much like not showing a receipt, all by itself, is not evidence of a crime either. And so 2) now that you have shifted the whole scenario to that of simply being in a park, the "root causes" of why you put that law into place in the first place aren't even being addressed anymore, namely you aren't getting the criminals on their original crimes anymore as to why you put the park curfew laws into place in the first place. Grafitiers aren't otherwise being ticketed for grafiti, the "meth heads" aren't being ticketed specifically for meth, etc. etc. You're just getting everybody at a new investigation point, and not doing any real homework / investigations into why they are out there in the first place.

    And so, in my experience, I have noticed that if you compile these "blanket policies" you are effectively now "human trafficking" people (dare I say such things) around to either a) get into certain types of housing, or b) leave town altogether. This artificial pressure to work around a certain standard of living, without giving a foothold to the poor person that needs to start with less, is why I believe the problems of crime keep getting worse, as people continue to have a more difficult time "getting back on their feet" and perhaps eventually fall off the horse altogether, and become "transient." Another example is the "three unrelated rule" commonly enacted by municipalities to address rowdy student populations. Evidently "the students" are who they're ultimately after that they (the municipalities) are claiming are somehow "difficult to police." There are noise and parking violations to which they grow tired of (claiming) are difficult to enforce. (Why not just make criminal penalties for noise and parking violations more harsh?) But now, even though everybody knows that I am a quiet, non-noise-violative, non-parking-violative person, I now have to "give up" my right to live four or five to a house, just because the city wants "an easier time" policing their students. And so rent could be *significantly* cheaper in these towns if this ordinance wasn't in place. Another example I have seen are King Soopers now closing their lobbies at night / after 8pm. KS claims that, again "a few bad apples ruined for the rest, so now we have to throw the baby out with the bath water" -- and start blanket policy policing -- and take away the rest of everybody else's otherwise "right" to use the areas late at night (like students, late nighters, etc.) just because KS "claims" that they are "unable" to effectively police the areas against the homeless. Yet have they *ever* not been able to approach a homeless person in order to enforce their no loitering policies against? I hardly doubt that. Have they *ever* not had a police call taken to remove said homeless person for trespassing because they refused to leave? I hardly doubt that. And so by attempting to avoid policing entirely of such a class of population, I believe we have been doing them the disservice of actually addressing each of them individually, on an individual basis, to get them the individualized help that I believe they deserve. And now, with the three unrelated rule, and the parks being closed at night, and the constructing a structure tickets, and the camping tickets, and the lobbies closing early, and the microwaves being taken away in those lobbies, etc. I believe we are now simply "human trafficking" our problems to, like you said, go elsewhere. Yet there is no elsewhere, as the musical chairs game is now in effect for this entire population. Which, once their resources are even more so tightened, it only *appears* to further strain the even less resources we are giving them, which only further triggers even more resources to be minimized, which only furthers the problem more. It's a classic case of statistics fraud. The cities / their policies / KS / etc. have all inadvertently created the very problem that they claim victim to having to address. If we were all smarter about it, and reversed all these blank policies, I bet we could let what we would be able to intellectually honestly identify as the more innocent people use the parks at night, and "construct structures" (tents) in them, and live five to a house, and use the king soopers lobbies at night while paying for the use of them, etc. And only then would we be back to enforcing the *actual* true criminal violations against the *actual* problem people, by catching them in their *actual* violations to which we had originally, but foolishly enacted said blanket policies around in order to "shortcut" our policing against. And so, back to the guilty until proven innocent mentality, it seems that nobody wants to lift a finger for a population they *already* think is more predominantly "guilty until proven innocent," and so as a result, there is a very innocent subgroup of this targeted population (like me) I believe that is now in the middle of some sort of civil war between the policers and the transients, whereby all such innocent people keep getting "tossed out with the bathwater," while those tossing them out continue to (falsely) claim that those few "bad apples ruined it for the rest" (when we clearly know that it is impossible to "ruin it for the rest" -- because it's just lazy policing like with the receipt checking policy). And so because people don't want to go up to each and every homeless guy and tell him not to use the microwave without paying, they would rather take away the microwave entirely from everybody in order to avoid the whole situation in the first place. But now completely legitimate homeless people, who have paid for their items, have even less resources to work with, which may even more so become an even bigger problem that may very well cause them to only further slip into a deeper state of homelessness.

    Repeal a bunch of "blanket policies" and start giving poor people more of a foothold to work within, and I imagine everybody would have an easier time (a more equal opportunity) to live within their means. I believe this would naturally start to lower the ultimate stats, the crime and jail population rates, directly as a result. I used to have a computer job whereby I believed it was much more preferable to stop a computer from getting infected in the first place, as opposed to just fixing it after it got infected. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

    Quote Quoting jk
    View Post
    If the municipality owns the land it isn’t a row but realistically most roads are row’s and the land held by private entities.
    State and federal highways being the typical exception although where the state or federal highway overlaps local roadways it can go either way.
    Alright, for your brain to handle this conversation, I won't use the words "right of way" anymore -- even though the Fort Collins Municipal Code 17-42, and the Chief Construction Inspector, keep referring to our "public roads" as such. I'm talking about GOOD OLD FASHIONED PUBLIC STREET. USUALLY 100 FEET WIDE IN MY CITY. MULTIPLE STREETS LAID OUT WHEN THE CITY WAS PLATTED 143 YEARS AGO. BLOCKS OF PARCELS IN BETWEEN THESE STREETS. WHEN CLICKING ON SAID PARCELS IN THE CITY AND COUNTY MAPPING PROGRAMS OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC THE PARCELS SHOW UP WITH PARCEL NUMBERS. WHEN CLICKING ON THE STREETS IN BETWEEN THESE PARCELS, NO PARCEL NUMBERS SHOW UP.

    Quote Quoting jk
    View Post
    But if it owned by the municipality there could be an easement for the private entity that allowed him to do what he did.
    Yeah, this "easement" you speak of, that would allow him to do what he did, is called A VALID FENCE ENCROACHMENT PERMIT. There's nothing else out there for this issue. No "easement" stuff. Just a public street getting blocked off, with a fence, with a valid permit for that fence (or not).

    But, alas, I'll entertain a two fold description of what is going on, for educational purposes, just for you:

    1) The private entity must ultimately apply for a what is called a minor amendment (maybe this is what you are thinking of when talking about easements) which they must get approved by the city in order to ultimately fill in the area with rocks with. This minor amendment, however, as I have confirmed with the zoning department, only provides the right to ultimately modify the land only after it's approved and ready to be modified. It DOES NOT grant, in any way, the private entity the right to erect any fences around said land without permits, period. That's what the fence encroachment permit applications are for.

    2) The private entity, even though it may have even applied for and gotten approved by the city a minor amendment to legally modify the land with (which in the instant case he had not even applied for nor gotten approved yet anyways), he STILL has to apply for, and be approved for, and granted, and given, an entirely separate fence encroachment permit, in order to legally erect any fences around said area.

    Without a fence, the area remains PURE PUBLIC STREET. Without a minor amendment, well, he'll just get into some other trouble with the city for eventually modifying the land. But as mentioned above, the minor amendment has nothing to do with restricting the land from public use. Only the fence permit does.

    Quote Quoting jk
    View Post
    You really do not have all the facts or you are misconstruing what you do read

    Fencing off the property would not amount to theft. Stealing land is pretty tough to do. It’s pretty heavy. There are myriad other laws that may apply but theft isn’t in that list.
    Okay, call it *whatever* you want to call it. I call it theft, because he "took away" -- without lawful justification -- the general use of the land by the general public. Without the city doing it's part (which I think maybe they could have done a better job on) by maybe putting up some sort of notice that the area is not, in fact, a restricted area, because no valid permit exists to restrict said area, or perhaps, also informing the police that there exists no valid permit for it (but then again, wouldn't it be the cops' job to check with the city, and not the other way around, because "unlawful" is an element of trespassing that they should be investigating into before arresting people over?) most people didn't / don't know that they could / can enjoy said area, as it was / is still considered "regular old public property" according to the very Chief Construction Inspector who sent the takedown notice for it in the first place. Without a valid permit, the area is not "a restricted area." What is used to legally restrict the area? A VALID PERMIT! Like mentioned before, not a fence, but a permit. I can't seem to think of the situation being possibly any more complicated than that. I don't see why we would need to entertain / indulge a private entity while he continues to violate municipal code. If everybody knows that the private entity did what he did, I think we can all (me, the chief construction inspector, the police) say with confidence (as long as we all know our laws and have checked to see if a valid permit exists) "Haha, nice try private entity! You can't steal our land from us, it's ours!"

    Let's say for arguments sake that I was *caught* by Eric Holsapple while behind his fence. I hardly doubt that he would call the police up, and be taken seriously, that "A guy is inside of my restricted area! I put up a fence, and he's not supposed to be behind there!" I imagine the cops would eventually probe him and ask, "What do you have to substantiate that the area is legally restricted by you?" To which Eric would have to put his tail between his legs, and say, "Oh, well, I don't actually have anything *yet* to substantiate that I have legally restricted the area, by way of a valid permit, but I'll be applying for fence encroachment permit for the area real soon! I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But in the mean time, can you still remove this guy from behind this fence for me?" I think the cops would look at him really funny, and then say, "Dude, you're under arrest for installing a fence on public property without first getting a valid permit approved with the city in order to do such things. Here's your 23-84 ticket. Good luck in court."

  10. #30
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    Default Re: False Arrested for Standing in a Median

    GOOD OLD FASHIONED PUBLIC STREET. USUALLY 100 FEET WIDE IN MY CITY. MULTIPLE STREETS LAID OUT WHEN THE CITY WAS PLATTED 143 YEARS AGO. BLOCKS OF PARCELS IN BETWEEN THESE STREETS. WHEN CLICKING ON SAID PARCELS IN THE CITY AND COUNTY MAPPING PROGRAMS OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC THE PARCELS SHOW UP WITH PARCEL NUMBERS. WHEN CLICKING ON THE STREETS IN BETWEEN THESE PARCELS, NO PARCEL NUMBERS SHOW UP.
    in your case usually is irrelevent. Either it is a ROW on private land or it’s state owned land. Your means of determining ownership or private v. Public land is useless. You have to study the plat maps and the description of relevant plots of land. Then lay out the plot (like in survey) to determine what area is included in that plot of land.


    Your continued harping on needing a permit to preclude you from any land is ridiculous. The owner of the land has a right to preclude you from the land, no permit required. It’s a right inherent with ownership.

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