The LAPD on Tuesday escalated its crackdown on skid row's homeless encampments, for the first time in months arresting transients for sleeping on the streets.
Police Chief William J. Bratton said he authorized the arrests after the L.A. city attorney's office issued a legal opinion saying that officers could arrest homeless people who slept on skid row's streets during the day.
But the new tactics were met with concern from some L.A. council members as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, which has aggressively challenged the city's efforts to remove the homeless camps.
Catherine Lhamon, racial justice director of the ACLU of Southern California, questioned whether the arrests made Tuesday are allowed under an April federal appeals court ruling that struck down the city's ban on people sleeping on streets and sidewalks.
The court, siding with the ACLU, ruled it was cruel and usual punishment to arrest homeless people for sleeping when the city could not provide enough shelter beds for them.
"It would be unwise social policy to be making arrests pursuant to that ordinance," Lhamon said.
The chief said he felt comfortable making arrests on the sleeping ordinance in part because there are more than 100 shelter beds available on skid row this week. The city attorney's office gave the go-ahead, concluding that the appeals court ruling applied only to camping at night, not during the day.
But Councilman Dennis Zine questioned a policy of arresting homeless people only during the day but allowing them to remain at night.
"It sets a terrible precedent," Zine said. "Are we going to say you can commit any type of crime if it's at a certain hour? Elsewhere in the city, like the Valley, the law is enforced 24 hours. ... I think the ACLU is on shaky ground."
The new tactics come after the City Council last month rejected a compromise with the ACLU, backed by Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, that would have allowed night camping but permitted police to arrest those who camped during the day.
Bratton announced that he and Villaraigosa have reached a new compromise with the ACLU that they hope the council will consider later this month.
The arrests mark a new push in the LAPD's 10-day-old crackdown on crime and blight, which resulted in a surge of arrests and the first decline in the district's homeless count in months.
