Restaurant menace spends night in jail
Keith Harwell
A man who police say resisted arrest after he annoyed and bummed (Is this slang really allowed in print journalism? It reads more like an email than news.) food from restaurant patrons has been charged with a variety of offenses.
Officers went to the Spindini restaurant, 383 S. Main, just before 9:30 p.m. Thursday after the suspect harassed customers in the restaurant’s outside area and refused to leave, according to a police affidavit. (Let me guess: we're going to privatize our sidewalks just like Los Angeles did. The demise of public spaces is a real bummer.)
He’s been asked to leave before by both management and police.
When officers tried to detain him, he walked away before he was finally stopped at Main and Huling, clutching several slices of pizza that he’d intimidated customers into giving him. (Really? They were intimidated? I wonder how many of the patrons were armed. This is just pitiful. Why doesn't the headline read "Local indigent clutches table scraps tossed out by bourgeois diners." Maybe the restaurant could have given him a to-go bag with food someone had sent back because it was too salty and he'd have been on his way. I don't like being harassed by people begging for food any more than anyone else because it's a real buzzkill for my privileged opportunity to eat expensive food and not have to think about poverty and reality. What ever happened to being able to eat escargot in relative peace? Arresting him just seems excessive. But thank goodness we're able to have the unsightly poor people escorted from our tables so we can dine in blissful ignorance of the poverty that plagues our city.)
Officers placed him under arrest and found a crack pipe in his pocket. (Typical.)
When they handcuffed him and tried to put him in the squad car, he kicked at an officer, who responded, the affidavit states, with a “one-second burst of chemical spray to the facial area.”
He was no trouble after that. (Again: this passes for journalism? This conversational, judgment-laden drivel is maddening.)
Keith Harwell, 26, has been charged with criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting official detention.
He’s being held in the Shelby County Jail on $100 bond. ($100: The average Spindini pourboire, no doubt.)
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4 people threw in their $.02:
As much as I hate Spindini, I can't understand why you would defend these bums that harass everyone downtown. Who cares if he was on a public sidewalk, I've had bums come INTO restaurants and ask me for $5 while I was eating (at much cheaper establishments than the cougar cage). Do you honestly think these people are victims of the "system"?
First let me be clear about at least part of my rant: the writing in the CA article read like an email or like a conversation. I'm first and foremost, if anything, a word and language snob. The author could have written "solicited" instead of "bummed" which itself is laden with negative meaning. It's a newspaper. Use the 75-cent words (not that solicited is a 75-cent word...).
And "he was no trouble after that" is an incredibly lazy phrase. It's a rebuttal fit for a bar brawl, not a newspaper. There's no reason for the criminal element or anyone to assault a police officer and perhaps chemical spray was in order. I would have been happy with a rewrite that read like this: When they handcuffed him and tried to put him in the squad car, he kicked at an officer, who responded, the affidavit states, with a “one-second burst of chemical spray to the facial area" which subdued him. (I like my edit much better.)
Also (to quote Palin), I never said that he's a victim of "the system" but it's an interesting point. If by "the system" you mean gentrification, then yes. Public spaces are very important to a thriving city - Mike Davis (UC Riverside) has some great thoughts on that. Public sidewalks are public sidewalks for bums, vagrants, students, yuppies and cougars alike. If you want a private space, build a patio. or convert the parking lot into open seating. But the sidewalk is fair game. The rich don't own public spaces. If I want to come out with sidewalk chalk and play hopscotch in front of Spindini, I should be able to.
At the same time I totally admit it, I hate being harassed by people begging for money or food while I'm eating, especially if it's an upscale place. Once when I was at a gas station pumping gas (corner of Poplar & Danny Thomas) someone came up to me and asked if I had any money. I said sorry. Then he asked if he could have the half-opened box of crackers on my passenger seat. I said no.
Poverty is a really inhumane situation that reduces people to doing dehumanizing acts like begging for pizza and half-eaten boxes of crackers. If people are trespassing, they should be held accountable. But not disrespected.
I get harassed just as much as anyone when I'm downtown. I even lived there for two years (until a thwarted home invasion sent me packing to midtown). I believe in downtown. But the Handling Panhandling folks have it all wrong. I will continue to defend the homeless people and the poor people against the undignifying portrayals they receive in the media.
FG
Hey,
I teach rhetoric. The term for the style of writing employed by the CA is "slanting"--a no, no, at least in academic writing, much less journalism.
Got a unit on slanting coming up soon. How about I use your blog entry? Ok?
Sure you can use the blog post, provided you let me know how it goes. Field Guide as pedagogy. Not bad. I'm flattered!
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