Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it could happen here and today it's near
Speaker 1: and myself and we're doing two interviews, which is going
Speaker 1: to split over two different episodes. What we're talking about
Speaker 1: is a case in Ashua, North Carolina where a group
Speaker 1: of people doing mutual aid work with and How's people
Speaker 1: have been charged with felony littering. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: get a little bit in the episode into what felony
Speaker 1: littering is. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us can
Speaker 1: explain why that exists as a charge for individuals and
Speaker 1: not for BP or SHELL or something, but such as
Speaker 1: a state. And so in the first episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Sarah. Sarah is one of the people
Speaker 1: facing these felony littering charges. Sarah's also been banned from
Speaker 1: parks in Nashville and which we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: So Sarah will explain a little bit of the process
Speaker 1: that led up to those felony littering charges, what the
Speaker 1: situations like in Asheville for mutual Aid in front How's people.
Speaker 1: And then we're going to talk to Meniba tomorrow. Maniba
Speaker 1: is one of the lawyers at the ACLU, and she
Speaker 1: will explain a little bit of the legal background to
Speaker 1: the case and what is sort of the way that
Speaker 1: the a CEOU is helping these people oppose the ban.
Speaker 1: So we'll have two separate episodes, but we actually recorded
Speaker 1: them in a different order, So you're going to hear
Speaker 1: Sarah maybe referring to some stuff Maniva said, and Maniva
Speaker 1: saying Sarah will say some stuff. Just know that we
Speaker 1: recorded Mani the first because she had a pressing time commitment,
Speaker 1: but we felt that Sarah's interview gives you a better
Speaker 1: set up for listening to many of the interview tomorrow. Okay,
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy. We're going to start out talking to Sarah.
Speaker 1: He's one of the people who is a quote unquote
Speaker 1: problem child in Asheville. We can yeah, yeah, okay, Sarah,
Speaker 1: did like to introduce yourself and tell us where you're
Speaker 1: a problem child? Yeah, my name is Sarah Norris. Um.
Speaker 1: It's so funny to be called something like a problem
Speaker 1: child because I'm mostly like what I am as a
Speaker 1: mom of a little kid. I'm a social work student,
Speaker 1: like I am a career educator, um. And I am also, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of sixteen local organizers who who has been facing
Speaker 1: for almost the last year felony littering charges in conjunction
Speaker 1: with December twenty one. December twenty twenty one art spaced protest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did this bizarre thing has happened to you? Obviously,
Speaker 1: like on the face fit felines, felonines ring is a
Speaker 1: bizarre charge, and the fact that you are banned from
Speaker 1: parks is also very weird. Alright, So let's maybe start
Speaker 1: off with, like the situations before this, what were you
Speaker 1: what we were doing in the parks that led to
Speaker 1: you being deemed unsuitable for parks? Gosh, no way, you'd
Speaker 1: have to ask those who deemed who so deemed us?
Speaker 1: But I can talk about what I did in parks
Speaker 1: for the year prior to being banned, and that's I
Speaker 1: was part of a collective whom who at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the pandemic um did like six times a week meals, coffee,
Speaker 1: gear distribution in parks. Um. By the time I came
Speaker 1: around and started participating in these in these food sharings,
Speaker 1: in these community gatherings, UM, we were at like two
Speaker 1: or three times a week. And UM, really, what the
Speaker 1: way I spent my time in parks was Saturdays and Sundays.
Speaker 1: I brought my daughter to Aston Park and we brought
Speaker 1: food with us, gear with us, art supplies with us,
Speaker 1: or nothing with us. We just showed up as us
Speaker 1: and we hung out and we distributed food, tents, packs, socks, toothbrushes,
Speaker 1: really whatever we could get our hands on. And towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year we got a little bookshelf
Speaker 1: and uh we were we were in charge of bringing
Speaker 1: books UM on this like little white plastic shelf and
Speaker 1: like talking to people about what they most wanted and
Speaker 1: see if they can match them up with whatever we
Speaker 1: randomly had. UM. It was really like sitting in the
Speaker 1: sunshine and making sure the coffee thing was full. Um.
Speaker 1: And mostly just talking to people, people who were run house,
Speaker 1: people who are housed, people who walked by and were like,
Speaker 1: what's this? What's this picnic? Why is everybody like using
Speaker 1: glitter glue? Like, oh, because there's a five year old
Speaker 1: and that's what we do. UM. So so that's what
Speaker 1: mostly I did in Parks, UM. And this is this
Speaker 1: this activity, um isn't the context of a city. Who
Speaker 1: I think in twenty twenty one, UM, I think we
Speaker 1: know there were at least twenty ones weeps of homeless
Speaker 1: encampments UM and a sweep like that name for some
Speaker 1: of us, really connotes violence, but I think it's important
Speaker 1: to name how violent those are. UM. A camp sweep
Speaker 1: means that folks have to leave the place where they've
Speaker 1: been living, and very often their belongings are then considered
Speaker 1: to be trash, are bulldozed over, are are at a
Speaker 1: minimum lost to them. And this had happened over and
Speaker 1: over again in the city of Asheville. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a way that that being in the park weekly felt
Speaker 1: like a thing that happened in Ashville that was the
Speaker 1: opposite of feats, that was like we're here, We're all
Speaker 1: here together, like here we are UM. And so the
Speaker 1: protest itself around which in the context of which like
Speaker 1: these arrests have come, happened in December and it was
Speaker 1: an arts based protest and was really about was in
Speaker 1: favor of sanctuary camping in the city of Ashville with
Speaker 1: sanitation services. That was the point of it. And there
Speaker 1: were like kind of standard protest related events on or sorry,
Speaker 1: arrests on Christmas night. So that's what UM Ashville police did.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important just to note that there
Speaker 1: were not unhoused folks evicted that night on Christmas night,
Speaker 1: and no one who was there was pretending to be
Speaker 1: unhoused and was arrested. That's a strange narrative that the
Speaker 1: City of Asheville Police Department has set in open court.
Speaker 1: But there were standard sort of like misdemeanor trespass resisting
Speaker 1: officer arrest that night, including of journalists, and then these
Speaker 1: felony littering cases came much later and in a kind
Speaker 1: of a different context. But that's what that's what happened
Speaker 1: around Christmas. Okay, yeah, it's already pretty weird, but I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets waited. Yeah, yeah, So particularly if you were
Speaker 1: not arrested, then I went home and chrismusy stuff, and
Speaker 1: then at some point, well a letter comes to your
Speaker 1: doors saying that you've been charged with like felony littering.
Speaker 1: So my own experience, um, was that people organizers in
Speaker 1: the mutually collective that I'm part of, who had been
Speaker 1: showing up in the parks week after week distributing food
Speaker 1: and gear, started getting arrested in mid January. For um,
Speaker 1: what we learned was something you could be arrested for,
Speaker 1: which was felony littering and or aiding into and a
Speaker 1: betting felony littering, which like honestly exactly and and some
Speaker 1: people had one, some people had the other, some people
Speaker 1: had both. Um people were and this is you know,
Speaker 1: our understanding is that there's an unstated but generally followed
Speaker 1: policy by the City of Usha police de forma that
Speaker 1: they don't go arrest people at work. But they went
Speaker 1: to people's work with five cops and arrested them, um.
Speaker 1: And this began in mid January, and it continued um
Speaker 1: into into February and be arrest I mean, like honestly,
Speaker 1: the charges on the on the charge sheets would read
Speaker 1: like crazy statues that weren't even felony littering. It seems
Speaker 1: like they it really seemed like they were making it
Speaker 1: up as they went along. Just from the what I
Speaker 1: can say is, I mean, I can't speculate about what
Speaker 1: they were doing, but there was a strangeness to to
Speaker 1: even like the documentation that people who are arrested received.
Speaker 1: And then at the in the first week of March
Speaker 1: of last year, the letter that I received was similar
Speaker 1: to others that others other folks received that day, which
Speaker 1: was in an envelope from the Ashville Police Department, but
Speaker 1: was on Ashell Parks and ch stationary that told me
Speaker 1: that I had been banned from all city parks for
Speaker 1: a period of three years based on the commission of
Speaker 1: a celony. And this was how I found out that
Speaker 1: I even had any charges, was through this letter. And
Speaker 1: that's true for more than me, that's true for a
Speaker 1: few defendants. So you know, not everybody who is now
Speaker 1: we understand to be banned from parks has even received
Speaker 1: one of those letters, but I did, and a few
Speaker 1: of us did, and there was on there a sort
Speaker 1: of like if you would like to appeal this, you
Speaker 1: have seven days, but the letter had been dated sort
Speaker 1: of five days before that, and we were like, wow,
Speaker 1: what are we even doing? And so it's hard to
Speaker 1: it's hard to really communicate the like level of um
Speaker 1: both like sort of desperation and nonsense that was involved.
Speaker 1: The next day, but um, you know, so a few
Speaker 1: of us found this out. We were we self surrendered
Speaker 1: and because we were a lot of us around the
Speaker 1: courthouse in city hall, we were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what does this letters even mean, Like what does it
Speaker 1: mean to appeal this? What does it mean to be banned?
Speaker 1: And so we trapsed around city hall, city offices, the
Speaker 1: courthouse trying to get some sort of answer like what here,
Speaker 1: we've got these what does this mean? And every place
Speaker 1: sent us somewhere where they were like, we don't know
Speaker 1: what that is. Park Snart said, we don't know what
Speaker 1: that is. Go talk to the police. We said, we
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. Go talk to the magistrate.
Speaker 1: The criminal magistrate said, oh, this seems like a civil
Speaker 1: magistrate thing. So there's like a group of five mutual
Speaker 1: aid workers, you know, sort of just trapesing around trying
Speaker 1: to find out like can I do I get to
Speaker 1: go give out sandwiches intense in the park this week
Speaker 1: or not for three years? What is? And who can
Speaker 1: help me figure this out? And no one could and
Speaker 1: what insod? We never got an answer that day. We
Speaker 1: just had city employees looking at us, often with a
Speaker 1: like wow, we don't We're sorry this is happening to you.
Speaker 1: This seems really dumb expression. And eventually via email it
Speaker 1: became clear that they were like, we don't know what
Speaker 1: this process is, but we're going to tell you soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your email, you know, saying you're going
Speaker 1: to appeal it and over time, we kind of got
Speaker 1: a little bit more like, Okay, we're going to schedule
Speaker 1: the hearings. You will have a hearing eventually, Like okay,
Speaker 1: we asked who will be these are, like for what
Speaker 1: what is a hearing? And they didn't know, and then like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well there will be some police officers there and you know,
Speaker 1: the city representative from the city Attorney's office, and you
Speaker 1: will have a chance to provide information. And you know,
Speaker 1: at this point, like none of us, I think none
Speaker 1: of us had maybe we'd had adamin appearances, but like
Speaker 1: at this point, we're dealing with felony littering charges that
Speaker 1: we don't understand. We're trying to figure out whether we
Speaker 1: can continue to provide community care in the way we've
Speaker 1: been doing for years, and it seems like what the
Speaker 1: city is offering is a chance to come and maybe
Speaker 1: entrap ourselves. Like it doesn't make any sense to us.
Speaker 1: And so you know, those of us who had presentation
Speaker 1: that we could speak to said, oh, we're coming, and
Speaker 1: have you heard the recordings? No, Well, if you would
Speaker 1: like them, I'm happy to send them. Mine is particularly
Speaker 1: I can't listen to mine. I have a huge nervous
Speaker 1: system response, Um, but mine is my my attorney asking
Speaker 1: over and over again questions of the of the representative,
Speaker 1: the city attorney. It's not it's John Maddox, who's um
Speaker 1: named in the ACLU demand letter. Um, just saying over
Speaker 1: and over again, like what at that point, we haven't
Speaker 1: even seen any discovery, Like we don't know what information
Speaker 1: this is even based on, Like there are two cops
Speaker 1: in uniform pointing body cams that assume I have to
Speaker 1: assume pointing body cams at me, um, and in this hearing,
Speaker 1: and my lawyer is just asking over and over again,
Speaker 1: like upon what evidence is this space? And they just
Speaker 1: said over and over again, you're here to give information.
Speaker 1: We are not giving any information. My lawyer asking what
Speaker 1: is the standard of review here? Like how upon what
Speaker 1: is this base? And the parks director just saying, like
Speaker 1: my decision and the and and then and then you know,
Speaker 1: what are the what is the remedy if this is
Speaker 1: if the appeal is denied, there's none, then the appeal
Speaker 1: is denied like and so it really was for me
Speaker 1: one of the moments where I realized like, oh, the
Speaker 1: city is is pretty hell bent on keeping a bunch
Speaker 1: of sweethearts who give out tens and sandwiches out of
Speaker 1: the park and they're gonna like they're they're upsistance in here.
Speaker 1: But I'm happy to share that recording. We have all
Speaker 1: of them reported. Yeah, I'd like that performance of like
Speaker 1: sub legal ceremony well and like yeah and and like
Speaker 1: pseudo in a dangerous and extra judicial way, like I
Speaker 1: had no protections there, right, Yeah, it was like yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I think to respond to. Yeah, like these these
Speaker 1: are these these are Star Chamber proceedings, like like the
Speaker 1: King of France is going to walk out. I just
Speaker 1: think it seems like such a British thing, like yeah,
Speaker 1: you told me this in Britain and you've been like
Speaker 1: shooting the Queen's swans or something. I'd buy it. You know.
Speaker 1: Here we are in the land of the free. You
Speaker 1: know that well, And I think the equivalent of shooting
Speaker 1: the Queen's swunts here is um hanging out with poor
Speaker 1: folks in a park, um and in ways that inconvenience
Speaker 1: or that apparently inconvenience the folks who go who pay
Speaker 1: money because you have to to play tennis at a
Speaker 1: public tennis court which is like right by Aston Park
Speaker 1: and and we can go in in a minute as
Speaker 1: much as you want to to what you saw as
Speaker 1: far as like their attempts after their attempts to pass
Speaker 1: to sneak through an ordinance. Um now we know quite
Speaker 1: clearly from public records directed at at food sharing in
Speaker 1: Austin Park. Yeah, it's really I keep thinking about that
Speaker 1: that Helder Kamar aligned I When I give food to
Speaker 1: the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked
Speaker 1: why they are poor? They call me a communist. It's
Speaker 1: like they really seem to have blown all the way,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't even get to part two. They were
Speaker 1: just like wait, hold on, you're giving food to the poor,
Speaker 1: like it is time for a military response. It's just
Speaker 1: it's just horrible. Yeah, and being banned from parks for
Speaker 1: three years has a pretty big effect on my on
Speaker 1: my little life, you know, like there are constitutional um
Speaker 1: aspects to it that matter far beyond me and and
Speaker 1: which matter in many ways more to me. But the
Speaker 1: fact right now is that like I can't legally take
Speaker 1: my young child like to the park, buy her house
Speaker 1: without risking a rest for misdemeanor trust house, um and
Speaker 1: and to my knowledge, I won't be able to for
Speaker 1: three years. Um, and you know they've succeeded in getting
Speaker 1: us out of the park. They caused the harm to
Speaker 1: they disrupted community care. They did it. They didn't need
Speaker 1: the ordinance. Um. You know, it does happen. Food distribution happens,
Speaker 1: but it's in a place that really isn't the same.
Speaker 1: Like my daughter can't go there. She has some sensory
Speaker 1: stuff like being in the loud place that it is
Speaker 1: right now, it really doesn't work. So yeah, there's this.
Speaker 1: There's this very um like the scopes of all of
Speaker 1: this from how Asheville as a city views and treats
Speaker 1: the folks who live on the street here who the
Speaker 1: city has most abandoned. There's the legal mechanisms, the like
Speaker 1: very strange way they are like doubling down on criminalization
Speaker 1: of folks doing community care. And then there's just like
Speaker 1: the really day to day personal personal bits of this
Speaker 1: that affect all of us in different ways, And a
Speaker 1: felony would affect lots of us in different ways, Like
Speaker 1: it endangers professional licensure, Like I'm trying to get a
Speaker 1: social work license, like people it endangers professional licensure. Of course,
Speaker 1: I right to vote, housing and employment and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the like middle aged, white, middle class mom, second
Speaker 1: graduate degree person in the group. I am not really
Speaker 1: representative of our group. Like folks are in a lot
Speaker 1: less folks are in a lot more precarious and material
Speaker 1: circumstances than I am, and so much so that like,
Speaker 1: you know, it feels safe for me to come on
Speaker 1: this podcast. It doesn't feel safe for everybody to come
Speaker 1: on a podcast. It feel safe for me to have
Speaker 1: my name out, like, um, it doesn't for everybody. And
Speaker 1: I think, um, yeah, I think that that's something that
Speaker 1: has to be named too. Of like how what I
Speaker 1: threat this is to folks future material will being as
Speaker 1: well as currently like folks have most housing over this,
Speaker 1: Folks have lost employment over this, like um Jesus Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like even if you're found completely innocent or whatever, like
Speaker 1: this is robbed your time or people at the housing
Speaker 1: or people's their jobs that caused stress and in that way,
Speaker 1: you know, it does feel and often to us like
Speaker 1: the like the punishment is the process. Yeah, it's just harassment.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I feel are updated on
Speaker 1: like there are five of us being taken to trial.
Speaker 1: Is that something you know? Okay? Yeah, So yeah, but
Speaker 1: our listeners probably aren't so explain like so right after
Speaker 1: this happened or at some point actually happening. So I
Speaker 1: know when we started speaking, I was like, well, I'd
Speaker 1: pr ra the shit out of all your city council people,
Speaker 1: and you were like, we already have. Yeah, so because
Speaker 1: there was some stuff in there that was just weirdly Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you explain what you got from, like this has
Speaker 1: got a problem jib monica come from, among other things. Sure, yeah, gosh,
Speaker 1: it's so even talking about it, I have such a
Speaker 1: reaction and um that I can feel um and I
Speaker 1: should say, you know, I speak about this to my name,
Speaker 1: not about the city the text necessarily, but I speak
Speaker 1: about the situation to a lot of people because it
Speaker 1: does feel to us like you know, they're also I
Speaker 1: think they would like us to be ashamed, but we're
Speaker 1: not ashamed of what is happening to I mean, that's
Speaker 1: part of the degradation of a quick system. And so
Speaker 1: you know, all of my neighbors know what is happening
Speaker 1: to me, all of the people that I work with,
Speaker 1: um in the various like uh, school related jobs and
Speaker 1: such that I do, and to a person, everyone in
Speaker 1: Asheville starts with disbelief. They're like no, and then I'm
Speaker 1: like yes, and then they're just so disappointed, like they're
Speaker 1: just they're so appalled. Often people say the number in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Often people are like, wow, I really
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Some people did know, you know that
Speaker 1: the city was was like this. Um, but you know
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of paralleled my experience in a way,
Speaker 1: just like disbelief and then and then disappointment. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we recently it's intensify and recently seeing the publicly available
Speaker 1: communication between council members UM, and and I think, UM,
Speaker 1: I want to be careful and I don't have it
Speaker 1: in front of me, and so I don't want to
Speaker 1: I don't want to misquote it. But what I can say, UM,
Speaker 1: is that anybody can go find on the City of
Speaker 1: Aashables public records or posts. Anybody can go get those
Speaker 1: now because they've been requested. Um. And so they're publicly available.
Speaker 1: And we have texts between council members that that are
Speaker 1: kind of debate, that that are in contemplation of an
Speaker 1: ordinance that would restrict food sharing in public places to
Speaker 1: to require permitting in contemplation of that, like we have
Speaker 1: we have texts from council members calling um those who
Speaker 1: do those who do fouturing ask and park problem children
Speaker 1: UM and saying that it's a shame that the problem
Speaker 1: children have ruined it for the rest of the class.
Speaker 1: We have we have one saying, like, you know, probably
Speaker 1: if if we go ahead, we city Council go ahead
Speaker 1: with this, with this ordinance, there will be a lot
Speaker 1: of protests and a lot of pushbacks, which of course
Speaker 1: there was once it came out UM. And we have
Speaker 1: the other council members saying like, yeah, that might be UM,
Speaker 1: but if permitting is the only way to get them
Speaker 1: to stop, then so be it. And I mean I
Speaker 1: read that, and I have a variety of reactions, but
Speaker 1: mostly just like a kind of nauseous disappointment UM in
Speaker 1: And this is not true of all council UM because
Speaker 1: some of some some folks have tried to like understand
Speaker 1: the gap um being filled by folks who give out
Speaker 1: food and gear in a part um. And I think
Speaker 1: some of the council and have and have recognized it
Speaker 1: as a gap um that is being filled. And I
Speaker 1: think some are are so aware of what it says
Speaker 1: about the city that folks have to show up in
Speaker 1: a park and give out food and gear and there's
Speaker 1: never enough of either. Um, they're so aware of what
Speaker 1: that lays bear about the abandonment that the city practices
Speaker 1: of those who live here that they can only see
Speaker 1: that and they can only be angry with us, right
Speaker 1: and call us problem children like forty three. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you can see the sort of light like the kind
Speaker 1: of just like petty dictatorship mind that they've gotten themselves into.
Speaker 1: We're like they can't see the people who like, you know,
Speaker 1: nominally they're supposed to be serving, right, but like, okay,
Speaker 1: we know how far that goes, but they can't see
Speaker 1: like you as anything other than just like a child.
Speaker 1: Because that's the kind of like this is the sort
Speaker 1: of dictator brain that they've that they've had from like
Speaker 1: holding this power. It's it kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: like how he's through the fourteenth He said, like the
Speaker 1: state is me and therefore a tax on my reputation
Speaker 1: or like a tax against the state. Like yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how it feels like you're being treated us by making
Speaker 1: them look bad. And I don't know if you saw
Speaker 1: this also in there, but um, on the day that
Speaker 1: the arrests happen. So so those discussions about the ordinance
Speaker 1: were I think a little earlier in January that which
Speaker 1: actually took that. Um. But there's a there's one that
Speaker 1: came right on the day of the first arrests for
Speaker 1: Lani lettering that um or someone asks like, can those
Speaker 1: arrested be banned from certain places? Um? And and we
Speaker 1: know now yes, but it is it's a lot to
Speaker 1: see that. It's a lot to see what looks um,
Speaker 1: what looks so deliberately like depriving us of the right
Speaker 1: to be in a park? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: where is where's the five you are going to trial? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Unknown number of people are banned from parks in Nashville. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that we someone has been told, um, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't keep records of that, which also doesn't make
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Yeah, how can you force a
Speaker 1: bath if we don't have a record of who's bay?
Speaker 1: Yeah and I just quoted on that, but UM, but
Speaker 1: my understanding is that, like, um, is that that has
Speaker 1: been the It's like, oh no, there aren't records that
Speaker 1: we can that can be made public about that because
Speaker 1: there's complete aren't the records? Um? What does that? Just
Speaker 1: seems like that's just like incredibly bizarre secret police shit
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, no, we have like we have we
Speaker 1: have lists that don't exist of people who are banned
Speaker 1: from spaces and we won't tell you what they are
Speaker 1: because I don't existe. Yeah, you'll find out when this
Speaker 1: what team comes from behind the swings and yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah terrible. So yeah, you're banned from the park, you're
Speaker 1: facing you're going to trial. Yeah, five of us um
Speaker 1: have been have been scheduled for trial, and the other
Speaker 1: folks um have been kind of what's called taken off
Speaker 1: the calendar, so they don't have nothing's dismissed um, but um,
Speaker 1: but they're not scheduled. There's no there's no next court
Speaker 1: date for them. Okay, so when when will you if
Speaker 1: you don't mind saying, when would your trial date be?
Speaker 1: Our trial date right now is set for February twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: Well okay, so you're coming up, it's coming right up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's tough. We'll make sure we get this out before then.
Speaker 1: How can people support you, support the work that you
Speaker 1: uh not doing in parks anymore? How can people help
Speaker 1: you through this. I'm sure it's a really stressful trial prices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for asking. Um. So we post updates in
Speaker 1: a few different places. UM, But we don't have our
Speaker 1: own Instagram right now because we're we just don't. But
Speaker 1: our our defendant statements get released in a few different places,
Speaker 1: including at a VL survival on INSTAGRAMM. We also have
Speaker 1: a website where we always post our own statements and
Speaker 1: also all the press that comes out about us, and
Speaker 1: that is abl Solidarity dot no blogs dot org. We
Speaker 1: have a VENMO which is used that those funds are
Speaker 1: used for attorney fees um and and frankly, like you
Speaker 1: know when someone loses housing or their car breaks down
Speaker 1: and they have had trouble finding employment because they have
Speaker 1: Felny lettering charges against them, and it's also used for
Speaker 1: material needs in that way, and that is a VL
Speaker 1: defendant fund and all that's actually on the website too.
Speaker 1: You can find those um. And honestly, it matters so
Speaker 1: much that people just know this is happening, you know,
Speaker 1: when I tell people in Asheville, like more people know
Speaker 1: now than did before. When I tell people outside of Asheville,
Speaker 1: there's very much a like I thought about coming there.
Speaker 1: I heard it was cool. They do want those who
Speaker 1: make not just like a living from tourism, but those
Speaker 1: who make tons of money from tourism are certainly invested
Speaker 1: in thinking that it's really cool and coming to spend
Speaker 1: your money here. And it's not cool in the ways
Speaker 1: that they want you to think it's cool. It is
Speaker 1: cool because neighbors show up for each other and you
Speaker 1: can come here and we'll talk to you about that.
Speaker 1: But there's a way that, like people knowing what this
Speaker 1: place is really like does matter. And there's a way
Speaker 1: that honestly, people just like sending us like they're they're
Speaker 1: beautiful energy and hope really matters too, Like that actually
Speaker 1: that actually really doesn't matter. So they can send us
Speaker 1: through beautiful energy and hope and material contributions as they
Speaker 1: might have them. Yeah, I'm sure people will because horrifically
Speaker 1: fucked up. I wanted to ask what it's the sentence
Speaker 1: range for felony literary Yeah, um, so um, it's the
Speaker 1: lowest class of felony. As it happens, none of us
Speaker 1: have any criminal history, we'd be facing felony probation, and
Speaker 1: so that could that there's a range there of whether
Speaker 1: that probation is supervised or unsupervised. UM. There's a range
Speaker 1: of how long it would be, there's a range um
Speaker 1: of restitution in terms of community service, UM and and
Speaker 1: I actually don't have the paper in front of me
Speaker 1: that says what the range of those things are, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it's eight to twelve months on probation
Speaker 1: um and a lot of that is simply at the
Speaker 1: discretion of incentencing um and um. And I think that
Speaker 1: that there are some puzzible restrictions on just like being
Speaker 1: able to leave the state. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, sorry, christ Like, this is fully fucking
Speaker 1: sent me now because a guy, a man called Robert
Speaker 1: Wilson in San Diego was arrested for hate crimes because
Speaker 1: he assaulted his gay neighbor. Since he was arrested, he's
Speaker 1: driven around San Diego and La dressed as a Natzi,
Speaker 1: sometimes with horrifically anti semitic slogan, has just left the
Speaker 1: country and is living in Poland because because fucking like somehow, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I love it. This is fully fully sent
Speaker 1: me now too. Yeah yeah, what is wrong with this ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah there was something else you wanted to get to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I wanted to name so. You know, people
Speaker 1: are so in a way like I wish I had
Speaker 1: a super cut of everyone I've ever said the word felony,
Speaker 1: lettering too, just like over and over again. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: come to Asheville and just vox pops pop. Yeah. Um
Speaker 1: so there's a way that you know, of course, that's
Speaker 1: just like and if you add on aiding and a betting,
Speaker 1: which we've all been bumped up to follow me, littering,
Speaker 1: um but or sort of but but but the mystemar
Speaker 1: is conspiracy to commit no, yeah, what's next? Reco charge exact? Yes,
Speaker 1: so um so on its face, you know, it has
Speaker 1: this ring of absurdity, and of course like it is,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the press about us, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll go talk to someone at the School of Government
Speaker 1: who says, like, well, this is baffling and at the
Speaker 1: very least seems like a misapplication of the statute, which
Speaker 1: is about um, huge amounts of waste often being like
Speaker 1: dumped by businesses. Um. But I think it's it's it's
Speaker 1: telling that a couple maybe a month or two ago,
Speaker 1: there was an article in the Citizen Times, a local paper,
Speaker 1: about US and a company, Waste Pro, which had dumped
Speaker 1: an entire dumpster's worth of trash. Now I'm like out
Speaker 1: somewhere outside of UM where it should have been like
Speaker 1: in the landfill, And but it was all about like
Speaker 1: how actually they had followed procedure because there was like
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of a battery fire or something.
Speaker 1: There was something going on with it where they they
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to bring it in, so they just had
Speaker 1: to dump it UM. But in the course of this
Speaker 1: article UM they interviewed a lot of people about like, well,
Speaker 1: what's going on with like litter in general and like
Speaker 1: big amounts of litter, and our case was never mentioned,
Speaker 1: but they did talk to some folks who who do
Speaker 1: river clean up, an organization called GreenWorks, and that person said,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there are like there's huge amounts of
Speaker 1: dumping that happens, and we call the city and they say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's illegal, but we don't actually prosecute that, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the sort of thing also that seeing
Speaker 1: in print, I'm just like, what what sort of strange
Speaker 1: like dystopian novel am I living in where the city
Speaker 1: is so upfront that like, oh no, like we wouldn't
Speaker 1: prosecute felony littering, but when it comes to aiming to
Speaker 1: disrupt a kind of community care and political speech that
Speaker 1: they don't like, they're willing to expend an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of resources on it. You know, like the number of
Speaker 1: resources that have gone into this would have funded like
Speaker 1: sanctuary camping with sanitation services like for years, for years,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think you alluded though maybe this
Speaker 1: is in the future of the podcast, like to the
Speaker 1: way the City of Asheville or our lawyers have been
Speaker 1: clear that when you when you look at the City
Speaker 1: of Asheville's like public apnouncements and the way that they
Speaker 1: talk about U homelessness, it does seem like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: we're really we're really trying to get on this um.
Speaker 1: But at a recent meeting where a consultant group often
Speaker 1: referred to as like yeah, that other like that that
Speaker 1: consultant group from now because it's happened to over and
Speaker 1: over again, presented findings about like what should actually be
Speaker 1: done to end unheltered homelessness. Here presented findings to the
Speaker 1: city Council and accounting commissioners. No one was allowed to
Speaker 1: talk except for this huge meeting no one was allowed
Speaker 1: to talk except for council members and commissioners and those
Speaker 1: who were presenting. But a man who actually has experienced
Speaker 1: was experience with homelessness got up and talked anyways, and
Speaker 1: he was interrupted by the mayor and like that's telling
Speaker 1: in its own right. Um, that's that's telling in its
Speaker 1: own right. Also telling is that later um also not
Speaker 1: allowed to speak, a local pastor got up and said,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw that happen. You know, like what
Speaker 1: we need to be doing is actually listening to the
Speaker 1: folks who've experienced this and like data, yes, we need data,
Speaker 1: but we also need to like actually listen to the
Speaker 1: voices of what's going on. And he used the phrase um,
Speaker 1: which I think was echoing the man who had spoken
Speaker 1: earlier spiritual death, and said that this he thinks as
Speaker 1: a pastor, that Ashville is in a moment of spiritual death.
Speaker 1: And in a way, that's why I say, like we
Speaker 1: need you, We need your material contributions to us as
Speaker 1: defendants to collective care. Like when we have extra money
Speaker 1: in that defendive fund, we just give it away. Some
Speaker 1: people can buy more tents, and we need like we
Speaker 1: need some hope because Ashville is in this moment where
Speaker 1: it's as a city, it's making choices that seem so
Speaker 1: misaligned not just with like the image that it would
Speaker 1: like to sell to tourists, but like with with the
Speaker 1: people who live here and are actually like about it
Speaker 1: day to day in a neighbor's caring for a neighbor's way,
Speaker 1: Like really misaligned with what we actually want and what
Speaker 1: we actually are capable of offering each other. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is deeply sad that, like we've created this abstraction
Speaker 1: of society which is being entirely antisocial, like no one
Speaker 1: wants no one. Yeah, no reasonable person would do that.
Speaker 1: But we've got the state which interiacts on our behalf
Speaker 1: and is doing it. Yeah yeah, which also is probably
Speaker 1: I know, to editorialize for a second. Often people will
Speaker 1: make this argument. I see it specifically around gun laws,
Speaker 1: but with other laws to where this law won't always
Speaker 1: be enforced. I only use it if they need it,
Speaker 1: if they have to get a bad person. They will
Speaker 1: use it if anybody threatens their interest, their shit right.
Speaker 1: So it was extensively mobilized for a ghost gun law here,
Speaker 1: which made some bizarre things illegal, like the bank stick,
Speaker 1: which you use for spear fishing is now scan and
Speaker 1: a felony, and like there were definitely boomers who have
Speaker 1: dozens of those in the garage right and don't keep
Speaker 1: up on local audiences and are now in theory at
Speaker 1: risk of committing a felony. And then obviously the response
Speaker 1: to that from the councilors, Oh, well, we wouldn't charge him,
Speaker 1: like who we can't trust the state to be benevolent
Speaker 1: when it's your experience has shown it's anything but and
Speaker 1: you know we And I can say this personally because
Speaker 1: I've spoken I've spoken to people in city government or
Speaker 1: in state government who I've just said like, hey, did
Speaker 1: you know this is happening? Um? And and they're clear
Speaker 1: about how Um sure it sounds Nettie but the city
Speaker 1: but like that that we as a group have been
Speaker 1: painted as particularly dangerous. And that part to me is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't do this to anybody, you know, don't
Speaker 1: do it to anybody. But the part where where what's
Speaker 1: going on is like it's is this strange justification, um,
Speaker 1: with the idea that that we are dangerous people who
Speaker 1: deserve to be taken you know, who need to be
Speaker 1: taken out of a park who need to not be
Speaker 1: allowed to be in a park, you know, is particularly
Speaker 1: easily disproved by anyone who actually like hangs out with us,
Speaker 1: knows what, knows who we are and what we've done,
Speaker 1: but not when it's just like a weird whisper campaign
Speaker 1: in the in the halls of city government, like, oh no,
Speaker 1: they're bad, Like there's bad um. Like we've heard the
Speaker 1: lies that they've told about us. Some of them we
Speaker 1: have in um in you know, public records requests like
Speaker 1: um that we haven't even talked about. But it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a really strange thing to be to be
Speaker 1: painted that way. Yeah, yeah, it's basign. Again, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: it's happening to you. And so I think to wrap up,
Speaker 1: maybe again you could just give that. Then most people
Speaker 1: can support materially and yeah, you know, if there's any
Speaker 1: other social media account where people can follow along, where
Speaker 1: people can send their support and best wishes that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Our Venmo is a VL defendant fund, and
Speaker 1: yeah you can so on Instagram. We're easy to get
Speaker 1: you through a VL survival and there's a way to
Speaker 1: contact us through our website. We can have a little
Speaker 1: we have a little email. I'll be so cute to
Speaker 1: get some supportive emails. And that website is a VL
Speaker 1: solidarity dot no blogs dot org. Amazing. Thank you all
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you for giving us your time. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that you dealing with the farious state bullshit, all right,
Speaker 1: So that wraps up. Are into you with Sarah. Tomorrow
Speaker 1: we'll be talking to Maniba from the ACOU, the American
Speaker 1: Civil Liberties Union, and she will be giving us a
Speaker 1: legal perspective and some more insight into this case. We'll
Speaker 1: look forward to talk with you then. It Could Happen
Speaker 1: here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot
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