"I've got to go to the hospital," a pregnant woman filmed by the Louisville Metro Police Department's body cameras in late September told officers, standing near a mattress beneath a busy overpass. "What am I doing wrong?"
The woman was in labor and had told the police as they approached her that she thought her water had broken, but that didn't stop the officers from giving her a ticket for violating a new Kentucky law that bans all street camping—one of dozens of laws criminalizing homelessness that were passed this year.
Lt. Caleb Stewart, who cited the woman in Louisville, told her that he would call an ambulance for her, but when she began moving toward the street to wait for the emergency workers, he yelled at her to stop.
"Am I being detained?" she asked.
"Yes, you're being detained," he replied. "You're being detained because you're unlawfully camping."
Stewart was later heard on the body camera's audio saying he didn't believe the woman was in labor; a public defender representing her told Kentucky Public Radio that she had in fact given birth later that day and the family was living in a shelter while waiting for a January trial date regarding her citation.
The upcoming trial and the video underscore "both the absurdity and cruelty of anti-camping laws in KY and those cropping up nationwide," said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "This is an extreme incident, but unfortunately, it is not an isolated one. Instead of addressing the cause of homelessness—the fact that more and more people struggle to afford rent—politicians are passing laws that kick people when they are down and make homelessness worse. The solution to homelessness is housing and help, not tickets or fines."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that officials can ban sleeping and camping in public places. Since then, said Rabinowitz, nearly 150 cities across the U.S. have passed anti-camping bills.
The video was also publicized days after Republican elected officials celebrated "the person who murdered Jordan Neely, a homeless New Yorker," said Rabinowitz. "And [President-elect] Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies want to round up homeless people and put them in detention camps. All of these things make homelessness worse."
Shameka Parrish-Wright, director of advocacy group VOCAL-KY, said that "the disregard and disrespect of these two lives is the direct result of the so-called 'Safer Kentucky Act' that was enacted this year."
"People experiencing homelessness are fighting for their lives across the country and right here in Louisville. Investing in immediate, affordable housing and healthcare is the only way to stop this from happening again—not by handing out more tickets that won't house a single person," said Parrish-Wright. "Shame on the politicians who paved the way for this tragedy.”
"If politicians actually cared about homeless Kentuckians," she added, "they would focus on getting them the housing and support they need."
