It didn’t matter if they had no money or nowhere else to go at night: Unhoused people who slept on the streets of Los Angeles in the early 2000s could be ticketed or arrested for violating a city ordinance that barred sitting or lying on a sidewalk.
“You arrest them, prosecute them. Put them in jail,” LAPD Chief William Bratton told the LA Times in a 2005 interview. “And if they do it again, you arrest them, prosecute them, and put them in jail.”
“It’s that simple,” he added…