Dallas city council members’ attempt to get a grip on panhandling in the city led to even more confusion on Monday, when police tried to describe…
Dallas city council members’ attempt to get a grip on panhandling in the city led to even more confusion on Monday, when police tried to describe how they approach the issue of enforcement.
Police and city council members spent most of the Dallas City Council’s public safety and criminal justice committee meeting discussing the challenges involved.
City leaders have said for years that they want to cut down on aggressive panhandling, and police in recent years have issued thousands of citations.
But the biggest challenge: How do you address panhandling while ensuring people’s constitutional rights are being protected?
Late last month, police sent a training bulletin that suggests they will take a different approach by issuing citations for crimes associated with panhandling, but not panhandling itself.
The bulletin told officers they can cite people if they solicit on public roads or if they stand in the middle of a road to ask for money or a ride.
The only exception to that rule is for charities, whose representatives can get approval to stand in the road and ask for donations.
City council members on Monday questioned Police Chief U. Renee Hall whether the bulletin signals a softening of the department’s approach toward panhandling. Cities across the country are weighing whether crackdowns violate people’s constitutional rights — and the chief said on Monday that she doesn’t want to open Dallas up to any lawsuits.
She added that police still have the ability to reprimand people for crimes such as criminal trespass.
«If they’re aggressive, if they’re threatening, if they’re disorderly, if they’re criminally trespassing, those are the things we’re going to enforce around panhandling,» Hall said.
But city council members said they were still confused about the issue, and council member Sandy Greyson said the public feels the same way.
«We have ordinances that say we can enforce, but you say that we really can’t enforce,» Greyson said, asking for clarification.
City council members also chided the chief for not giving them heads up about the bulletin.
«It’s not hard to get in touch with us,» said Council Member Adam McGough, who chairs the committee. «I don’t want to read about it in the paper.»
He added that he would like to see more permanent solutions.
«The message from this body in this building needs to be, ‘We’re going to do whatever we possibly can to keep the public safety of those individuals up’ — not that we’re going to step back and take another look.»
The panhandling discussion lasted so long on Monday that the public safety committee couldn’t get through other scheduled topics, such as the city’s curfew for juveniles.
Hall said in a news conference after the meeting that she takes responsibility for the confusion.
«We just wanted to be proactive in not setting the officers, the city or this police department up for legalities or lawsuits,» she said. «We’ve taken initiative to give them some direction on how to enforce solicitation and panhandling. We are in no way stepping back from our responsibility.»
Another City Council discussion on panhandling is scheduled for next month.
