Arrested Artistry

by Ken Moshesh, Anna Morrow

CIRCLE DANCE

…SO NOW,

THEY RENAME US,

TO

MEMBERS OF THE LODGING TRIBE,

AND

REMOVE US FROM THE LAND

FOR HAVING TO SLEEP

THERE…Ken Moshesh

I have been homeless in and around the Berkeley area for the past 7 years. I have managed to be a productive, albeit homeless, citizen despite the condescending and negligent attitudes of the society surrounding me. For the most part I have been able to conduct my life without incident, relative to my seemingly provocative status as a homeless person, until the past 2 months. Something happened recently and I find myself fighting for my life; drowning in the prejudice and discrimination of our society's laws and attitudes towards homelessness. I can think of several reasons for why this may be occurring.

It may be because of my political activities in the Bay Area during the 60's and 70's. It may be a consequence of my writings and media activities on behalf of homeless folks. It could be the numerous discussions about UC Berkeley homeless policies (or non-policies) which I conducted on the campus beneath the Juniper tree. Maybe it was my recent attempt to have the book I wrote and the 3 videos I produced considered for curriculum material in relevant UC courses. Maybe it was that one of my films was submitted to a recent Film contest.

Probably it is the summation of all of these individual truths. In any event, I was about to find out that my life's work and rights as a human being were under siege. And there would be much more injustice, profiling and harassment by the Berkley police and the university police, to follow. And that ultimately, would lead to the forsaking of my beliefs that positive solutions and human rights were being championed by the supposedly progressive thinkers of the University officials themselves.

It began on September 27, 2000 when one of the University Police Officers was giving me a citation, “for lodging on campus”. He very loudly insisted that I must have a criminal record if I was “lodging on campus”. I publicly rebuked his inaccurate assumptions. The officer was noticably embarrassed when his radio communications yielded my record: an undergraduate, graduate and teaching career at UC Berkeley; not the criminal record which he had assumed.

The next incident occurred on October 27th at approximately 7:30 in the morning. I had gathered up my belongings and was heading across campus towards the stairs enjoying the fresh air. Suddenly the light clean air left by the recently ended rain was polluted with an ominous whisper: “Hurry! Hurry! He's coming down. I don't want him to hear my voice.”

Looking in the direction of her informant, a Univeristy of California PD Officer hurried up the stairs towards me. “Oh, it's you”, she muttered. She ordered me to drop my gear and produce my ID. She told me to turn around and handcuffed me. She confiscated my bags, and then said, "YOU PEOPLE SHOULD SLEEP OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, NOT HERE." I told her that was not an option because of security guards there. We walked in silence to the police car.

We waited until one of her cohorts pulled up and she informed me that I have a warrant on my record. I’ve been expecting this because 2 weeks earlier I was told by Berkeley Traffic personnel that they could not find any computer information verifying any citations. They gave me an official letter indicating this absence and told me to SHOW THIS LETTER TO POLICE PERSONNEL should I have any need to before coming back at the end of the month to secure a court date. I would need a court date to deal with two previous lodging citations. In order to clear up this warrant business I asked to show the official letter to the officer. I got no response.

Instead I was whisked off to Berkeley City Jail. I was jailed so quickly, no one read me my rights, declared me under arrest, or formally charged me. I wouldn’t receive formal charges UNTIL THE FOURTH DAY OF my INCARCERATION...CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.

I was told to take out my shoelaces if I wanted to keep my shoes with me and the drawstrings from my jacket to keep that (they wouldn't come out). During the electronic fingerprinting the UCPD officer commented on my layered clothing and told me that my sleeping bag was too big to fit in the milk crates where they store our property. She told me it would be held at the university police station. She then took my other bag which contained my self-published book and said it would go to the station as well, even though it would easily fit into a milk crate.

I recall some of my experiences in jail:

FRIDAY - I'm dubbed AFD483. SLOW HOURS AFTER 7:30 A.M. YIELD: A BAG LUNCH AND A SWANSON DINNER, A CALL TO A DISTANT RELATIVE. I am denied access to and not allowed to take my Berkeley Free Dental Clinic prescribed abcess medicine because, "It's improperly labeled".

SATURDAY- 24 hours pass in stony silence punctuated by occassional prison guard 'etiquette'.

SUNDAY- A jailor erroneously tells me that I am charged with tresspassing and have a warrant. Bail is set at $3500. I won't be allowed to make any phone calls. Nothing is presented to me in writing.

MONDAY- We leave Berkeley's City Jail for Processing at Santa Rita, the Alameda County Jail. I am finally allowed consultation with the public defender where I am informed of the following:
The official charges are 2 counts of Lodging (647J), not Trespassing, and I have no warrant outsatnding. I recieve this in writing, though it is lacking the ussual court date. That afternoon we return to Berkeley for court. We are taken to the holding cell, chained together 13 strong, where proceedings are put over until Tuesday morning.

Back at Santa Rita we are crammed into an overcrowded holding cell, like rush hour BART passengers marooned in a sealed off tunnel, waiting for proccessing. The proccessing takes all night long. There are TB shots and a medical interview. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? DO YOU HAVE ANY ENEMIES IN HERE? HOW DOES THE PHONE WORK? WHAT ARE YOU IN FOR? SLEEPING OUTSIDE ? DAMMN!!... Until it’s time to board the morning bus back to court in Berkeley, without chains this time. We line up to go to the various city jails. A near-skirmish breaks out reminding us all of the danger of our surroundings.

TUESDAY - The Judge's decision comes down on 10/31/00. I plead guilty to two lodging citations. Negotiations through the public defender results in the following conditions:

Probation for 24 months

Credit for 5 days served in jail

A 1OO dollar fine payable in a year

Be of good conduct

Report any change of address

Stay away form all UC buildings and the UC campus. ('unless on lawful business' was crossed out during negotiations)

Retrieve property from campus at UC Berkeley with civil standby only.

The next day at my official homeless address, I am given two envelopes containing the same warrant(#165844). They are dated the 26th and 27th of October. The 27th was the day of my so-called arrest.

When I call the UCPD to inquire about my property I am told by the arresting officer that I will be fingerprinted, booked and probably released if I come in for my property because they are not sure if the warrant is still in effect.

So I decide to go to the Berkeley courthouse first to obtain a copy of the Official Clerk's Docket and Minutes. I am told that the warrant has been taken care of as customary, by the court proceedings of the 31st.

The official minutes confirm my recollection that the judge orally agreed to my being able to conduct lawful business on campus. That stipulation had been manually crossed out on the official court probation document that I recieved, leaving me totally banned from all activities at the university. The docket from the Berkeley courthouse does not mention anything about a warrant; it contains only 2 counts of lodging and a 2000 dollars bail.

There had been so many “interpretations” regarding my warrant situation that I was unclear about the final result. I decided not to retrieve my property from UCPD as they had threatened me with further incarceration.

The entire ordeal had left me so frustrated and exhausted. Still, I was determined not to give into the anger. Right when I’m thinking that things can’t get much lower I learn that I have received an award of excellence for my video "Endangering the Species"! The Berkeley Film Festival 2000 has chosen me to be the recipient of the award in the Ethnography category. This feels like high praise and just in time for my battered dignity.

Ironcially, my latest video, "Primal Urban Sprirt Pulsating" which I began at the Associated Students of the University of California Art Studio will now have to be completed somewhere else.
The people who have honored my work with an award of excellence have just banned me from stepping foot on University property!

Subsequent to my arrest I would be interviewed by a reporter fromn the Daily Californian for a story she would title “HOMELESS ARTIST ANGRY OVER ARREST (11/21/ 2OOO). Bill Cooper, UC Police Captain and spokesperson, responded saying, "Ken Moshesh, who is currently homeless, had incurred numerous citations that led them to ban him from campus."

I have recieved three citations over seven years for being homeless in this area. The last two and the "arrest" occured within a two month period. One could then assume that having three citations is grounds for banishment from campus.

Capt. Cooper continues: "Miranda Rights do not have to be read in all circumstances. He was arrested under warrant for lodging. Miranda Rights only have to be read if there is a question about the crime. But there was already enough evidence to establish the fact that he was lodging. People aren't supposed to sleep in building."

Not only was I not read any rights at all, I was never declared to be under arrest.
I was stopped walking down the Dwinelle Annex carrying two bags, not inside a building. I was not, as they have alleged, found lying in a sleeping bag.

Apparently walking down the stairs with two bags at 7:30
in the morning was not sufficient grounds for establishing my guilt. They had to say that I was "lying in a sleeping bag" and "in a building" to substantiate their lodging claim so they could rush me to jail.

Their embellishments also serve to protect society's rampant denial of the fact that too many Americans have to sleep outside of buildings; on concrete, wood and dirt in this land of plenty.

Article 25 of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself (herself) and his (her) family including food, clothing, housing and medical care..."

I carry on, still homeless,
but now I’m on probation, I’m banned from my place of work and I have a criminal record.

My life's work has been about helping to bring this country closer to it’s own Declaration of Human Rights by sharing the experience of homelessness and engaging others in positive solutions. Why, I’m wondering, has a university that prides itself as being a cradle for civilized discourse made it so unneccessarily dificult for me to share my work?

This university should not emulate the uninformed portion of society by attemptinmg to hide, disguise and incarcerate homelessness. The UC's elitist Not-In My-Backyard policies turns a public campus into private property at night.

What the university should do to validate itself as an institution of higher learning is rally to the forefront of the issue. It could marshall its vast public and private resources to help develop a humane, viable solution to homelessness consistent with their avowed politcal prinicples. They would, with their reputation and history, present a leadership role worthy of the new millenium.

12/12/0O

Also by Ken Moshesh:

Books
* Cobblestoning Quicksand Mazes

Videos
* Homeless to Hollywood
* Endangering the Species
* Primal Urban Spirit Pulsating

I HAD PLANNED TO USE THE EICHORN DECISION OF THE FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COURT WHICH SAYS IN PART,”AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS NO REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE TO SLEEPING IN A PUBLIC PLACE IN SANTA ANA NEED NOT TRAVEL IN SEARCH OF STREETS AND OTHER PUBLIC PLACES WHERE HE CAN CATCH HIS 40 WINKS.”-THE NECESITY DEFENSE [‘EICHORN DECISION UPHOLDS SLEEP AS A HUMAN RIGHT,”MARCH 1999, STREET SPIRIT ] AT MY TRIAL.

I HAD STARTED EDITING THE MASTER FOR “PRIMAL URBAN SPIRIT PULSATING” AT THE ASUC ART STUDIO JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE “ARREST’AND A WEEK AFTER OUR PRO-HOMELESS CONCERT ON THE AMANDALA SHOW BROADCAST ON THE UNIVERSITY RADIO STATION KALX ON THE 15TH OF OCTOBER 2000.