Alfonso Hernandez, unjustly arrested for giving food to the homeless in Albuquerque, N.Mex., settled with the city on Aug. 6 for $45,000. Officers had arrested Hernandez in 2010 on charges of “serving food without a permit, disobeying a police officer and trespassing.” After judges dismissed all the charges against him, Hernandez filed a lawsuit against the city, which led to the settlement.
Another couple arrested during the same homeless outreach event settled with the city for $40,000.
The circumstances around this case are symptomatic of the war being waged against the poor and working class of this country. An e-mail, obtained through public records, was circulated to police officers, stating: “These folks need to be identified, their names, their organization. … This is an intelligence gathering session.” Such attack campaigns and espionage by the police aimed at activists are nothing new.
In 1988, the San Francisco Police Department arrested nine Food Not Bombs volunteers for the same “crime” Hernandez was arrested for—feeding the hungry. There are over 50 other cities around the country that have laws limiting or banning the sharing of food in public.
Laws aimed at the poor and homeless are a staple of capitalist society. Whether it be laws against panhandling, loitering, jaywalking or trespassing, their use to criminalize the poor is a tactic to marginalize those who have been wronged by capitalist society.
Tool for organizing
Movements focused on feeding the hungry have long been a tool in organizing against poverty. Revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party and the Chicano Revolutionary Party had effective breakfast programs for Black and Latino youth that highlighted the failures of capitalist society. Free food programs continue to challenge and question the authority of the ruling class, and are a tool for organizing the masses.
Efforts of individuals like Hernandez and organizations like Food not Bombs, while deemed by the ruling elite to be unacceptable behavior, continue to draw attention to the inequality experienced by poor people here in the U.S. Just as organizations like the BPP and the CRP were targeted by law-enforcement agencies in an attempt to end their influence in the community, the same kind of harassment is happening today. Highlighting the injustice of a system that is responsible for throwing so many people out on the streets is seen by the ruling class as an offense to their power structure and worthy of “intelligence gathering,” as the Albuquerque police put it, and incarceration.
The capitalist state with its network of police thugs may have been partially successful in dismantling organizations of the past that fought against this system of hunger and brutality, but it cannot stop a revolutionary concept like feeding the poor. People like Hernandez will continue to spring up anywhere there is injustice, and there is no power, not even that of the wealthy capitalists, that can stop it.
