Guestblog:Can't Get There From Here, The Preposterous Police Paradigm Middletown

Below is a essay by Fred Carrol. All opinions expressed are that of the author and not necessarily that of the Insider staff.

Fred Carrol affectionately know as "Dr. Carrol" is a frequent guest blogger of ours, so to read more of his essays type "Fred Carrol" into our search above, or click on his name in the tags below.
In his own words below:
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Can't Get There From Here, The Preposterous Police Paradigm Middletown- you, me, and forty five thousand of our closest friends. The Police-I don't know the total staff number but there are generally about one hundred gun toting, badge wearing Officer types, and their job, Ladies and Gentlemen, is, to make sure that the rest of us behave ourselves in a general kind of way and obey all the important laws, right? Do you know anyone other than a Lawyer who knows "The Law"? Do you think Cops are particularly well versed in "The Law"? And what, pray tell, is this "Law"? Is Law from God? Does God guide the hand of the Lawmaker, whether King, President, President For Life, Pharaoh or what have you? And to hasten an answer to my posited questions, no, of course not on all accounts. So what "motivates" any given Policy Enforcer? Well, from soup to nuts and varying from individual to individual, but of course there's the paycheck and the power, those would be constants. Would you do this if you weren't getting paid is a certain Litmus Test. Most "standing armies" for example won't fight if they don't get paid, as far as I understand, whereas Revolutionaries and Insurgents and Freedom Fighter types fight either for freedom, homeland, life itself, or obviously just cause they're crazy and like to fight in some cases, but it ain't about a Paycheck. If it is about a paycheck, then it's time to talk about money, and who controls money.....and we know who makes and owns "the money", though don't look to me for THAT story. But for example, if the Police where about Justice and What's Right, they would smash their way into every establishment which sells cigarettes, grab the proprietor, drag him out into the the street, and pistol whip him-"This is for Johnny, who's got Cancer!".

 Fred Carroll

Guest Blog: Loitering (Cold) War Update!

Guest Blog by the Fred J. Carrol
All guest blogs are published as a courtesy and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Insider Staff.

Below is an update to his previously published essay here: http://www.middletowninsider.com/2012/09/guest-blog-loitering-wars-update-by.html 
Many thanks Fred!

Loitering [Cold] War Update....tempered by five years 

of Bum with Brooming

.....well, let me start with right now and work my way backwards....as I walk up or down Liberty or Grand basically between High and Main streets of course I don't have to "look at" the garbage to see it, I already know it's there and can't help but see it....smell it, sense it, and not only do I not feel the same itch which prompted me to drop to my knees and start pulling weeds once upon a time back as it were in the day, before this Obama took the country completely Socialist! [sorry, I can't help myself...that's a joke....], yeah back in the day when the Doctor was a weed pullin' fool, a veritable broom swingin' savant [ I don't have to tell you what kind of savant], a leaf blower bearing bastard who didn't mind, nay verily delighted in, making a public fool of himself by energetically cleaning various types of "property", any or all of which obviously did not belong to said fool me...... so in other words what, am I crazy? What is going on here, why is this shaggy haired toothless old goofball cleaning the sidewalk, curb, steps, lawn, dumpster area, alley like he was not only getting paid, but maybe had an electric shock collar on punishing any slowing down with a few volts....Yeah, never mind "Oh no, I'm working but, alas! I am not being PAID to work...oh woe is me...woe is me..", no, never mind that, my initial Bums With Brooms endeavors had every potential to get me arrested, committed, or murdered.
Yeah it was a fairly dangerous bit, you know, just being out and all around at all hours, never mind being me, which is to say a hundred and fifty five pound long haired women's pants wearin' fifty some years old chess playing effete intellectual snob...very dangerous bit, never mind fairly. Anyway, why the hell did I want to do what I did for a solid four years, why? To answer as truthfully as possible with brevity at a premium also, I did it[wanted to do it] because I had nothing else to do, but beside that, because I enjoy blowing peoples minds...it's a sixties thing, you know....anyway.....what I started out to say is that...I don't want to clean the streets I mentioned anymore.....I feel like a plurality of the people who live there truly don't deserve clean, or, more importantly want it..... and my "artist's eye" is really developing to the point where I see litter as something which is as much as supposed to be there, as an emblem or flag of the [pardon me!] zeitgeist of a particular neighborhood, and shouldn't necessarily be disturbed......But so to bring it to loitering I honestly don't even really have anything to say about people standing around all day every day not selling drugs, or whatever it is.
My problem is when people leave their [tubercular sounding !] lung butter on the ground. That's it. And I'd bet it would take electric shock collars to get them to stop.
Fred J. Carroll

Guest Blog: Loitering Wars Update by Fred Carroll

Last month the Insider was privileged to get a guest blog by Fred Carroll on his take on the " Loitering Wars" he has observed taking place in Middletown. The original post is below with background information. Thank you Fred!

http://www.middletowninsider.com/2012/08/guest-blog-loitering-wars-of-middletown.html

Below is Carroll's update in his own words:

Loitering Wars Update by Fred Carroll.....I walked into the five dollar cupcake place the other day and whilst ordering an Irish Car Bomb I inquired as to whether they ever considered naming a cupcake a Mexican Standoff in honor of the ongoing Loitering War scrum, which is currently in a "cold" state, or, "Mexican standoff". They hadn't considered it. Alright, cuteness thus dispatched, I'd like to say a few words about the history and background of loitering and loitering laws. In the good ole' Puritan times if you wanted to chill under a tree for a bit, you were well advised to pick an apple tree and bring a basket along for an alibi in case one of the brethren should see you "idling", as in "the Sin of Idleness". In more recent times anti loitering law has been used very effectively to circumnavigate Abolition; that is as a legal predication for rounding up Black men and throwing them on Cool Hand Luke style chain gangs and such.....all of which has absolutely nothing to do with Middletown's current "loitering problem", which at it's core is very simply a Quality Of Life issue - that is to say chronically dysfunctional people doing their dysfunctional business every day, all day, every night, all night. Salient to said dysfunctional "business" are drug dealing, prostitution, begging, and just generally being miserable as a result of the unfair hand dealt one by Life itself .....Said dysfunctional business is carried on without any regard whatsoever for anyone else who might also want to do business in the area, even when it's just someone else wanting to do some good old fashioned, honest loitering! Like me for instance, I don't dare get in the way of The Dysfunctional One's business, oh no, you don't want "interfere" with a drug deal, Heaven forbid! So when do I get to loiter, huh? And who do I complain to in the meantime?

Guest Blog : Loitering Wars of Middletown!

Fred Carroll, photo credit Middletown Eye article from July 2012

Last week NEAT held it's monthly meeting and the prominent topic of discussion was the on going problem of people being ticketed for loitering in North End of Main Street. Various businesses had spurred this as a result of their complaints to the Middletown Police Department. Among complaintants were the Community Health Center, The Buttonwood Tree, Wharfside Commons Apartments, & 8 Liberty. Citizens at the meeting accused police of targeting the poor and giving them $90 tickets for loitering, a fine those who spoke felt was unjust when the definition of loitering has never been clearly defined to the community. Nor was it defined at this meeting. Community activists and employees of St. Vincent DePaul Place and NEAT spoke on behalf of citizens and expressed concerns over perceived targeting to those receiving social services at the soup kitchen, health center, and various other North End enterprises providing them. Liberty Commons is owned and operated by St. Vincent DePaul, and many residents utilize use the soup kitchen. NEAR (North End Arts Rising) operates the Buttonwood Tree. The Community Health Center provides low and no cost health care on a sliding scale based on income and or lack of insurance and has a variety of programs offered to the at-risk neighborhoods of the North End. Observers of the meeting soon realized that branches of the same agencies were complaining about behavior of each other's patrons, yet these patrons were likely the same people. Izzi Greenberg, director of NEAT, and Ron Krom is Executive Director of St. Vincent DePaul gave charged testimony summarizing complaints they had received from people receiving loitering tickets. Krom said that patrons of the soup kitchen had received tickets. Mayor Dan Drew and Chief William McKenna were invited to the public meeting at the Green Streets Arts Center on August 2, 2012 but did not attend. Lt. Paul Maturo was present and defended the police actions.

North End Citizen & social activist Fred Carroll has written a guest blog detailing his thoughts on what he calls "Loitering Wars" and also appeared last week on the Comcast Channel 15 cable access show "The Variety Hour" hosted by William Wilson and Jon Pulino to discuss his thoughts and express his desire to get art back on the community-at- large's agenda. 
Carrol's essay below alludes  (the Insider's interpretation we could be wrong) to the fact that perhaps the issue with loitering has a wider impact and is in itself a commentary on the socioeconomic paradigm being the current state of the economy the country is facing. Is class warfare happening around us? Are we witnessing a shift in who uses social services and the identity of the "new" poor? What happens to the "old" poor, where do they fit in and what is it to be considered "poor" anyway? 
Carrol is a Middletown  intellectual icon (we at the Insider certainly think so!), a humanitarian, artist, chess player, founder of the Bums with Brooms social movement to clean up the streets of the city,  secretary of the Realist Balance Party of Middletown, and by traditional definition a practitioner of the "nomadic" lifestyle and  has been at times what most would consider, and by his own definition as well homeless.

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How To Know If You Are "Loitering" In Middletown's North End...If you can afford a five dollar cupcake, then you're probably not loitering....okay? Is that simple enough for all you confused, cop dissing, bum loving, "Liberal" minded, ACLU types, is that "clear" enough for you?

"But Fred"; I can almost hear you saying; "What if I can afford a five dollar cupcake but don't like cupcakes, or, for one reason or another have simply never bought one in Middletown, how about me, am I loitering?"

 And to respond to such a query as this in one word or less I would say simply "Well....", and then continue by saying that I personally have known people who never smoked pot, never voted, never married, never drove, never had children.....but someone who doesn't like cupcakes?! ...I'm not at all sure that such a person would be welcomed anywhere in Middletown, never mind the newly ever so groovy North End!

But seriously folks, speaking as one of Middletown's most loved and hated Bums I would like to offer my own ultra- simple "formula" for making a "loitering/not loitering" determination and it's this: If the area where you are standing, sitting, leaning, lurching, pimping, dealing, begging, stealing, WHATEVER is....wait for it.....dirty? Then you are loitering, period. If it was filthy is how you found it when you got there....it's not "your mess" in other words, then just very simply "get it clean" before you "get comfortable", or else don't park it there, period.

"BUT FRED!" I can surely hear you thinking, "That would never translate into a legally enforceable code, statute, or "ordinance" "....Right.
 The "Cupcake Rule" it is, then.

Fred Carroll