By Mark David Blum, Esq.

The stench on the streets of Armory Square is not coming from those poor unwashed souls who lack any means of self-support other than to beg for pennies from passers-by. Instead, the true affront is emanating from those do-gooders desperately trying to clean up the streets of Syracuse by arresting and disappearing the poor and weakest amongst us.

I read with dismay the current attack by Syracuse Police upon the homeless and poor and the arrests of so-called ‘aggressive panhandlers’ in Armory Square. The march of the yuppie alcoholic is being bodyguarded by Syracuse’s finest men in blue. Though their intentions may be honorable, their means are wretched. It is unconscionable to use of the criminal justice system to solve our community’s homeless and hunger problem.

How many of you have ever told a telephone solicitor, a boy scout in front of a market, a campaign worker, or a door-to-door salesperson “no” only to have that person continue in their attempts to make a sale and get you to give? Should our police agencies and scant few law enforcement dollars and resources be allocated to chase down those aggressive salespersons as well?

Simply put: I do not want to have to trust the police to define what is aggressive or abusive panhandling. What is “aggressive” to you may be to another a mere annoyance, and perhaps to me, a meaningless encounter. Under our legal system, laws by police are required to act must be objective in nature. We do not tolerate subjective standards to be made up on the spot. If we do, we risk chaos in the law and in our social dealings.

Police should not be the first intervention against beggars. Our present laws require the citizen to make the determination when he or she feels violated or wronged. If that becomes the case, the citizen approaches a police officer and lodges a complaint. Following that process removes any subjective determinations by police. It allows all of us as citizens to know ahead of time what is and is not acceptable behavior.

Right now, police officers are making the determination of whether a vagrant is behaving poorly. Lacking also are standards by which anybody is allowed to engage and interact with another citizen out in public. Only the police officer is now granted that capability.

It is sad that homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and mental illness plague the city in such large numbers. Maybe instead of expending valuable police and judicial resources or offering up a few dollars at holiday time, citizens actually worked face to face with some of these folks, or fed them, or housed them, or trained them. Don’t chase them away. Imprisoning them is not the answer. Wasting more valuable police and judicial resources will not cure the problem. Hiding the ugliness from our eyes does not mean the cancer is not there eating away at our collective soul. Maybe if we resolved the root issues, the City might be able to direct valuable and limited police resources to handle real crime.

In my very humble opinion, this new attitude is offensive and contrary to strongly held principles of this nation and of most of the religions worshipped by its citizens.