those ride-alongs they were probably the most candid about their jobs that I've ever seen a cop get and one conversation in particular has stood out in my mind for more than twenty years now.
This cop was telling me about a person who just didn't know when to shut up and after several minutes of being verbally abused by the guy, the cop simply arrested him on what he called a "ready-made" charge and simply took the guy to jail rather than listen to any more of his haranguing.
Here's what stood out in that discussion, however. He said that no matter what, a cop can always have the last word when dealing with someone "on the spot."
At the very least, the cop can interrupt your life and haul you off to a hoosegow, even if it later turns out that the charges will be dismissed. From his point of view - and I must say that this is one I now subscribe to as well - only an idiot argues with or harasses a cop.
This has to be one of the most important "pick your battles" warnings you'll ever get if you are living in a way that could cause problems if the right person/people discover it...
Herhold: From trailer to uncertainty
For the past seven years, with the permission of the landowner, she's lived on an industrial property a block off Coleman Avenue in San Jose's airport approach zone, most recently in a 24-foot Komfort trailer the owner gave her. Though she has very little, she sometimes cooks or makes coffee for the homeless who live by the nearby Guadalupe River.
Today, in what she believes is the result of a couple of run-ins with cops, Sanborn is facing eviction, and maybe the streets. San Jose's code enforcement unit has told her landlord she has to go. The code says she can't live indefinitely in a trailer that's not in an RV park.
"If we didn't have those regulations, then any person could live on the street in a trailer or RV," said Jamie Mathews, the city's code enforcement officer. "There's no way we could assure their waste material goes to a proper place."
Homeless
Sanborn, a petite woman who uses crutches because she says it is painful to put weight on her legs, is outraged. She insists she has an incinerator that takes care of her biological waste. "Why do they want to make me homeless?" she asked me, addressing me as "sir" throughout our interview. "I have a home."
Of course, it is not that simple. It rarely is. I've talked with the property owner, a compassionate
Yet your heart - and his - still goes out to Sanborn, who has lived relatively peaceably on the property in a camper shell or trailer for so long. Her plight could stand as an object lesson for the many homeless - or near-homeless - who march to their own drummer.
When I related the facts of the case to Barry Del Buono, the former head of EHC Lifebuilders, an emergency housing consortium, he said this: "She's not doing this to antagonize people. We're a big city, and we can allow this woman to live there. One size doesn't fit all."
Yoga encounter
The former nurse wound up on the industrial property as a result of convenient parking. Down on her luck, having lost a house in Hollister, she used to park her tattered motor home on the one-block street every evening, pulling in at about 3:30 p.m. and leaving before 5 a.m.
When police questioned this practice one weekend, the industrial owner suggested that she move to his property. She has been there ever since, depending on his largess.
As Sanborn tells it, her current problems began Nov. 3, when she laid out her mat to do yoga in the dead-end street next to her trailer. She says this attracted the interest of a cop, who asked her to move. When she didn't respond, she says, the cop put his foot on her back and threatened to take her cat to "kitty jail."
Sanborn admits she questioned the cop's parentage, preceding the insult with an epithet starting with "f." She says she suffered a Taser blast on her thumb during the incident.
Then, on Dec. 28, Sanborn got into an argument with a nearby business owner when she tried to cross busy Coleman Avenue to get to the bus stop. The cops were called, and this time things got uglier. She was taken away for a nine-hour emergency psychiatric hold - though she insists she's eminently sane and no danger.
(When I called San Jose police spokesman Jermaine Thomas, he confirmed the psychiatric hold but provided only sketchy detail. "There's a few things where she was listed as a suspect, but that's about it," he said).
It might well be that Sanborn encountered a hostile cop. In general, however, San Jose police have a reputation for treating the homeless with compassion. The bigger catch might be a code that, for the most part, is invoked only with a complaint.
Code officer Mathews told me - no surprise - that police referred Sanborn's case to code enforcement, an expectation when firefighters or police see a violation. Once the process is started, code officials have to follow the law. The sad thing is that this turns a solution into a problem.
What now for Sanborn? In the short run, her landlord may be able to help her by moving her trailer to Pleasanton. She says her friends have suggested she move to Los Banos, an idea she rejects. Another possibility is an institutional setting arranged through adult protective services - but that would wind up costing taxpayers money. "With all due respect to code enforcement," she asks, "where are you going to put me?"
Contact Scott Herhold at sherhold@mercur
