After this video went public,
the police officer involved has been suspended. But I have to wonder whether he was suspended because he did what he did, or because he got caught. You see, there are communities in the US which try to help the homeless and other poor people, and then there are places like Ft Lauderdale, where this video was made, which in 2014 made it a crime to feed homeless people. For a long time in the US, perhaps for all of our country's existence, in many communities, perhaps in most, it has been the standard practice of the police to try to make life for homeless people so uncomfortable that they will leave town. Ft Lauderdale's law against giving food to homeless people was just a little more public and flagrant than most implementations of this longtime standard policy.
If you've got a video camera in your phone, and you believe that all people are united in some way, if you believe that we're all in this together, please make sure that you know how to use that video camera and how to post videos online.
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