A group of homeless San Diego residents filed a federal lawsuit last week, saying police and other agencies there have tried to drive them from the city and send them to Phoenix.
The suit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. district court in San Diego, alleges that police officers and other city workers have been going around the San Diego and conducting “raids” on groups of the homeless, taking their few possessions and throwing them away. The officers have then told the homeless to head to Arizona, according to the suit.
From the lawsuit:
The city has mounted a campaign against homeless citizens with a series of well-planned, ruthlessly executed and mean-spirited raids designed to harass theses citizens and “drive them away.” Preferably to Arizona.
The Courthouse News Service was the first to pick up on the Arizona angle:
(One of the plaintiffs) says he asked a police officer, who has just destroyed his possessions, “What am I supposed to do now?”
“You can head for the Arizona border,” the officer replied. “I hear Phoenix is nice this time of year.”
San Diego’s city attorney responded by saying it caught him off guard but that he planned to defend against it “vigorously.”