#visit ca

[codiannbackman]

Point Reyes, California The 1,200 Mile Walk x Point Reyes by Codi Ann Thomsen

[sky-hi-venice-beach]

Via Venice311

This is what happens outside my window daily, which I've been documenting with photos. 

In fact, I've seen and reported these two transients before. 

So obviously, this is the atmosphere Venice Beach city council allows, encourages and promotes.  This is what residents have to live with, thanks to minimal enforcement by LAPD. 

If a tourist or resident is assaulted, or worse, it falls on them. They are very aware of the problem, and rarely take steps to address it. Enforcement is not consistent, and – as is evidenced by the breaking of every other ordinance that I've documented – any enforcement is selective.

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The reason this is allowed to happen is because some people confuse the violent criminals and vagrant addicts as the 'weird, crazy and cool venice.

They see even these violent transients as being 'the homeless.'

There's some overlap, sure. But there's a big difference at the extremes.

These people are not representative of those who are simply down on their luck.

They might claim it, when the police "harass" them.

No, they're very aware of how to play the system. I see them daily, right out my window. When I first moved here, I gave many more the benefit of the doubt. But it's pretty obvious there's an overall unwillingness of them to improve their condition.

Whether it's all addiction or mental illness, I don't know. But I do know, that given any free moment, most spend it sleeping, getting high, fighting, or divvying up expensive goods that mysteriously appear.

Nights are spent dealing drugs, fighting, tweaking on meth. They beg for handouts, sometimes aggressively.

Maybe it's the result is a failure of government or of the individual, or of the entire system - but the residents and visitors and business owners have to deal with them daily.

They are supported by the status quo here and discouraged to change the situation.

The help is there, and they go for it sometimes. Most often, not.

And the police cannot move or interfere with them without incurring cries of "oppression."

I'm one of the first people to decry an overbearing infringement of liberties. But what about the liberty and right to peace of others? Shouldn't they be equal? Scan the archives of this blog and you'll see it's not even close.

And often, it's the otherwise much more liberal and compassionate residents – those who have themselves given back to help the disenfranchised – that get harassed, stolen from, and assaulted.

That's the sad irony of it all.  

The city and LAPD say their hands are tied.

In other words, it's lawless.

Until a violent crime (eventually, predictably) occurs.