🦄 Community , 🦄 Social Control

City of Denver Cracks Down on its Homeless Community

By Unicorn Riot

Denver, CO – On December 16th, Unicorn Riot was on the ground as Denver PD evicted a homeless camp during a blizzard-like snowfall (pictured below) that day that measured eight inches. We learned later that police also attacked and evicted a camp that numbered in the hundreds on the day before, the 15th.

The Denver Police have continued their crack down on those unfortunate enough to not have shelter. We interviewed members of the homeless community on December 19th, outside the location of the camp that police evicted and listened to their stories. Peter explains what transpired this past Tuesday, the 15th of December:

The homeless community in Denver are consistently used to being moved around by the police, they are usually forced to at the least, relocate across the street. The city schedules sidewalk cleanings and the police have been using this as an excuse to arrest people and dispose of anything left behind. The community would normally move on the designated cleaning days of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This past week the police changed their tactics and schedules and came on a Tuesday, a non-scheduled cleaning day, and gave the over 100 homeless people very little time to gather their things into two bags and move.

The belongings and possessions of the community are continually thrown away by police and this also happened during the day of December 15th:

The people we spoke with seemed shocked as to why the police targeted them in this fashion. They said they’ve always moved, but suddenly the police came on a different day and came very aggressively. People we interviewed also stated that actions on the 15th were an escalation by the Denver police against the Denver homeless community.

Community members we spoke to told us that homelessness in Denver is now illegal.

We ended our interviews with DC, who broke down her recent experience with the Denver Police. She said the police constantly move homeless people, harass them, and disregard that they are humans who have families. She breaks down the the issues with shelters and declares that the only real help they have access to as homeless are being provided with a “one-way ticket” out of the state.

Full stream of interviews from December 19th:

Unicorn Riot continues to follow and document Denver’s city campaign to disrupt and harass the local Denver homeless community.

Unicorn Riot coverage on Denver’s housing crisis and unhoused community:
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