A 90-year-old World War 2 veteran has been apprehended and charged by police in Fort Lauderdale yet again after defying a new law that criminalizes feeding the homeless.
After his initial citation on Sunday for violating a recently passed city ordinance that prohibits the sharing of food, Arnold Abbott, founder of Love Thy Neighbor, garnered international media attention as his story went viral, but that didn’t stop police from interrupting another event last night on Fort Lauderdale Beach during which Abbott dished out free food to the homeless.
After police recorded the event from a distance, Abbott was eventually escorted away during an interview with a local news station before being fingerprinted and charged. Along with other volunteers, he could face a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.
“The good news is that there is pressure being put on the city of Fort Lauderdale to do something about a law that is not only unfair, it’s repressive,” Abbott, who has been feeding the homeless for 23 years, told Local 10, adding, “It’s our right to feed people, it’s our First Amendment right and I believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and we should be allowed to feed our fellow man.”
However, Mayor Jack Seiler doubled down, arguing that homeless people should be forced to have “interaction with government” and cannot be taken care of by fellow citizens, adding that Abbott’s activities represented a “public safety” and a “public health” issue.
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5 comments:
no it is the govt saying they want a piece of the damn pie and the homeless are not giving them the pieces of pie so they shut you both down...
People are homeless for a reason, try to fuckign fix that instead fo jailing people...
Those that feel safely at the top are apathetic to everyone else's plight but their own. Again, the haves and have nots. Human beings that try to put some good out into the world, will reap their just reward, self servers will not.
Keep on feeding the hungry and homeless. Those who try and/or succeed at stopping you will get their true desserts in the end. Doing the RIGHT thing is not always easy.
God bless this man. He is correct in saying he has a right to help his fellow man. Everything else is wrong.
May I suggest working at the Joseph House for all of you that thing this man is being treated terrible??
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