By Crescenzo Vellucci
The Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – The Sacramento Homeless Union Thursday asked a federal court to hold the city of Sacramento in contempt of court for sweeping homeless camps after a federal judge placed a moratorium on such sweeps, beginning Aug. 3 for two weeks, because of expected super-heated temperatures that could cause “death” to those unhoused.
In a motion, Anthony Prince, chief legal counsel for the union, wrote, “Plaintiffs believe that the City must be deterred” from violating the order, arguing, “If the City will not or cannot ensure compliance at the building that houses its entire administration—City Hall—how can the Court and the Plaintiffs be assured that it is ensuring obedience anywhere else in Sacramento?”
The union said one day after the temporary restraining order went into effect, Aug. 4, the union received a report that “City Hall campers had been cleared from the Plaza (and) confirmed that contractors employed as Security Guards for City Hall removed the homeless this morning.”
Prince wrote, “The injunction expressly applies to the Security Guards and does not provide any exceptions…It is the City’s obligation to communicate the Court’s order to all employees, agents, contractors, etc.” and the city said the incident “should not occur again while the TRO is in place.”
But, just a few days later, cites Prince, on the morning of Aug. 7, the union was again informed “police and security guards had dispersed the City Hall campers. Before Union officers could arrive at City Hall, City Attorney Grace Pak sent a message to Attorney Prince admitting the City’s actions, but, again providing an excuse.”
And, Aug. 8, Prince said a television news crew told him “she and her crew were at City Hall and had watched while a person believed to be a City contractor began power washing the area where approximately 15 campers had been sleeping (and) the power washer operator provided no warning or opportunity to the campers to move before he began spraying the high-pressure water.”
Prince told the court the news crew “observed the campers grabbing what they could and fleeing. As of the time the news crew left, there were no campers at City Hall.”
Prince noted that last year, after another court-mandated prohibition to prevent the city from rousting homeless camps, “Plaintiffs informed the Court that the City had violated its injunction with regard to two homeless persons who police had told to leave the shaded safety of an overpass.”
“Although the Court declined to impose sanctions, noting that Plaintiffs had not requested any specific sanctions, it nonetheless included in its Order of September 2, 2022: ‘If the Court learns the City has violated this Order, the Court will not hesitate to issue sanctions in the future,’” added the union, urging the court to sanction the city this time, and pay attorney fees.
“One year later, with a virtually identical Order in place and triple digits returning to Sacramento in a matter of days, Plaintiffs believe that the City must be deterred from all but the most rigid, thorough compliance on its own part and that of those under its control,” the union wrote in a declaration to the court.
Prince added in his pleading that while “[t]here is no direct evidence that the City acted deliberately in violating the Order…there is a thin line between acting deliberately and acting in disregard of clear orders, failing to promptly and effectively communicating to and overseeing obedience to the Order on the part of the Police Department, private security and all other agents, etc.”
“The Union specifically advised the City and following the first violation…the City represented that they had taken steps to ensure compliance by their agents. Yet, the same excuse ‘an oversight,’ ‘misunderstanding’ etc. was used not once, but twice and continues to be used in public statements to the media which has widely reported the story,” said the union.
Prince asserted, “As a result of the City’s misconduct, the number of campers at City Hall has dramatically shrunken and the Union, in its efforts to inform the displaced campers of their rights under the Order, has learned that many are now scared to return. Instead of being [in] the substantial protection of the shade provided at City Hall Plaza, they are in the hot sun, at the increased risk of harm that the Injunction was intended to prevent.”
When U.S. District Court Judge Troy Nunley issued the TRO a week ago, he said the union has a “likelihood of success on a Fourteenth Amendment state-created danger claim…Plaintiffs have presented sufficient evidence, at this stage, to demonstrate the City’s clearing of encampments constitutes “affirmative conduct” that places unhoused individuals at an increased risk of the ‘known and obvious danger’ of exposure to extreme heat.”
Nunley also concluded “Plaintiffs’ evidence forecasting excessive heat for the upcoming weeks and detailing the risks of heat-related deaths and illnesses is sufficient to show that irreparable harm will result in the absence of injunctive relief,” adding the city’s interest is “far outweighed by Plaintiffs’ interest in the health and welfare of unhoused individuals.”
The original filing by the union noted that when last year “brought record-setting excessive heat to the City and County of Sacramento, this Court issued two successive preliminary injunctions which…directed the City of Sacramento to cease its policy and practice of displacing unsheltered persons from areas where shade provided by trees and other vegetation as well as under freeway overpasses, bridges, buildings, etc. offered a modicum of protection from the sun and excessive heat.”
