(CN) — A class action lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of homeless individuals who live in their cars along the Pacific Coast Highway challenges parking restrictions that force them to move their vehicles across the street in the middle of the night.
The suit filed against the LA County Board of Supervisors, Sheriff Alex Villanueva, and various unknown sheriff's deputies includes as a plaintiff one partially named individual, "D. Kinney," who represents a putative class of "thousands" of homeless people who sleep in their vehicles along the highway, also known California State Route 1, which runs adjacent to the coastline.
The restrictions cited in the suit ban parking for a few hours a night — such as 12:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. — on one side of the street, and for a different interval — like 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. — on the other side of the street.
"Very obviously, these signs force homeless people who reside in vehicles to move their vehicles from one side of the street to the other side of the street, in the middle of the night, to disrupt their sleep," the complaint states. "Defendants who thought up this County of Los Angeles scheme at minimum are evil sadists and tormentors."
The plaintiffs are represented by civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman, who has frequently sued both the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department for various kinds of misconduct.
The suit, Yagman said, is "about the Sheriff and the Board of Supervisors using a technique that under international law constitutes torture — that is, sleep deprivation."
"In the middle of the night, with some regularity, Sheriff Villanueva's deputies come through with their sirens on, lights flashing, and they get out of their cruisers and they bang on these vehicles to wake up people who have fallen asleep," Yagman said.
The complaint, filed in federal court, repeatedly compares the Board of Supervisors and sheriff's deputies to Nazis, and compares the so-called "criminalization of homelessness" to "eugenics," adding: "Eugenics is the mildest term that could be used to describe defendants' wrongful conduct: both quasi-ethnic cleansing and quasi-genocide accurately could be used."
The complaint also includes a number of footnotes on the history of the Third Reich, eugenics and William Bradford Shockley, Jr.
When asked if some of the allusions to eugenics weren't a bit hyperbolic, Yagman replied, "I think it’s literal. That’s literally what’s going on."
The suit alleges more than 20 counts of various alleged violations, including equal protection, due process and cruel and unusual punishment. It also alleges “at least 100 RICO predicate acts have occurred,” including extortion and obstruction of justice. The plaintiffs seek an end to the parking bans, as well punitive damamges "not less than $1,000,000.00 per defendant."
In the last two decades, a number of lawsuits have targeted the way government officials have enforced laws that prohibit sleeping in public. The Ninth Circuit ruled, in 2018, that Boise, Idaho couldn't ban sleeping on the sidewalk until there were enough shelter beds available. Los Angeles, which has one of the worst homelessness crisis in the country, has seen a number of lawsuits seeking to force local officials to build more shelters and more permanent supportive housing. Other suits have sought to limit the practice, by police officers, of taking down tents and removing large encampments.
During the pandemic, officials in LA took a mostly hands-off approach to homeless encampments, which became a regular sight throughout the city. Recently, the city adopted a new policy of removing some of those encampments.
"Sheriff deputies don’t want rich people to have to experience the horror — in the sense of Captain Kurtz — of seeing people down on their luck and in dreadful circumstances," said Yagman. "It makes them unsettled and unhappy. They don’t want their relative tranquility bothered by having to see that."
"And the general public doesn’t know about any of this stuff," he added. "My fear is if the general public knew, they wouldn't care, they'd think it’s OK."
Board Chair Hilda Solis could not be immediately reached for comment. A spokesman from the Sheriff's Department was not aware of the suit, so could offer no comment either.
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