------- Forwarded message --------- From: LACAN <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 5:23 PM Subject: LACAN Statement On Garcia V. City Of Los Angeles To: <[email protected]>
*LA CAN Statement On Garcia v. City of Los Angeles* A federal judge has found this week that City of Los Angeles officials violate people’s constitutional rights when they destroy unhoused people’s property during the course of their sanitation sweeps. Specifically, the judge found that these officials are so corrupt and dishonest that they must forfeit their defense to a case brought by unhoused people and community organizations to stop their cruel practice of property destruction, sweeps and criminalization. This case exposes just how low city officials will stoop in their war against poor people on behalf of their corporate masters. This case is important and reminds us that allowing the rights of any individual or group to become disposable only opens the door for the deprivation of rights in any targeted community. The treatment of houseless people is inextricably tied to the way immigrants are being treated by the Trump regime—and this is happening in a purportedly “progressive” city. In the case of Garcia v. City of Los Angeles, unhoused people and organizers challenged the city’s longstanding policy of taking and destroying people’s personal property in violation of constitutional rights, human rights, and common decency. This sort of violence and criminalization has been the city’s primary response to the houselessness crisis for decades. It has been used to erase visible poverty in service of the interests of wealthy developers and property owners. Judge Dale Fisher had ruled, back in 2021, that city sanitation officials could not simply take and destroy property that they labeled “bulky items” under LA Municipal Code section 56.11. She ordered them to stop doing so. Rather than comply with the order and acknowledge their violations, sanitation officials simply rewrote their records from the sweeps to claim that they destroyed property, not because they were “bulky items,” but because they were a health and safety hazard. *An independent forensic audit, ordered by the judge, found that they had dishonestly altered about ninety percent of their records to avoid exposing their lawlessness and to defraud the court. In other words, the government lied and fabricated evidence to cover up continued rights violations.* This week, the judge ruled that their lies and corruption cheated the plaintiffs (unhoused people) of their right to a fair trial by hiding or destroying the evidence of their wrongdoing. *She ruled that the misconduct required a finding in favor of the plaintiffs for the entire case. * While the fact that they got caught is almost unheard of, their corruption and dishonesty comes as no surprise. LACAN has been fighting against this criminalization policy for decades and has brought cases over the years to stop the destruction of property, including the Lavan and Mitchell cases. In those cases, federal judges have agreed that the city has unlawfully destroyed property and ordered the city to stop. And every time, the city continues its destruction, while changing its stated justification so they can argue that they are following the law. For example, because the court order in the Lavan case allows destruction of contaminated property, sanitation officials regularly throw away clothing or tents (and everything in them), just because they are a bit damp during the early morning sweeps. This destruction wreaks havoc on the lives of people struggling to survive on the streets of Los Angeles. Sanitation officials destroy people’s clothing, bedding, medicine, papers, photographs, and any item they own that may mean something to them.The purpose is not health or sanitation. If that were the case, the city would provide toilets, showers, regular trash pick-up, and other services. It is certainly not about ending houselessness. If that were the case, the city would make every effort to help people obtain permanent housing. *It is about removing visible signs of poverty, making unhoused people disappear, and enhancing profits for the ownership class. In a city where centuries of ongoing racist policies have made houselessness disproportionately a Black and Brown phenomena, it is about white supremacy. * This case provides an opportunity. The judge has a chance to learn from the shortcomings of previous court orders and make an order that unambiguously protects the property rights of unhoused people and creates a mechanism to oversee the city’s compliance, with real penalties for violations. City elected officials have a chance to take action as well. They can unequivocally end the sweeps and instead provide real sanitation services, while focusing their efforts to end houselessness on permanent housing. They can remove the officials responsible for lying to the court (instead of promoting them) and serve notice to all city employees that dishonesty and cruelty will not be tolerated. *The city’s past record gives us little reason to think they will learn from this experience, but they know the right path exists.* Finally, it is crucial to understand that this case would not have happened and this corruption exposed if not for the courage of the people who stood up for their rights despite their vulnerable status living on the streets, the skill and tenacity of the lawyers involved, and the strategic work of the community organizers who have been fighting these injustices for decades. 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