Read on Twitter
Keeping a homeless man from being murdered or wrongfully arrested, a thread 1/8
2 friends and I walk up after a protest and see Michael, a homeless man, being questioned by an officer. Michael is calm and polite the entire time and answers his questions. 30 seconds later another cop shows up, then another, and by the end there are 5 cops surrounding him 2/8
At this point we have already told the first officer this is our friend and we can take care of him. He ignored us. Once all 5 officers are on the scene, they put gloves on preparing to detain Michael. We repeat that he is our friend and we can take care of him 3/8
One of the officers FINALLY comes over to us and asks if we know Michael. We say yes, like we said before he is our friend and we can take it from here 4/8
Finally all FIVE officers return to their cars and all of them leave except for the first officer on the scene. He watches us and follows us through downtown in his car as we escort Michael to the nearest homeless shelter to get a shower, wash his clothes and get some food 5/8
Michael tells us he’s been asking people where the homeless shelter is since he got here and no one seems to know. We part ways knowing that Michael is safe and will have a place to sleep over the weekend. It was literally that easy 6/8
It doesn’t matter how much training cops receive, they are incapable of protecting and serving the homeless and mentally ill popularion. It’s also disgustingly obvious that there are too many of them in our town and they have nothing better to do than harass a homeless man 7/8
I’m very glad Michael made it out of a very dangerous situation, but still incredibly frustrated that our city council voted to approve a budget that gives Walnut CreeK PD 35% of the general fund. #DefundThePolice and reinvest in homeless and mental health services 8/8
