The city manager of Sarasota, Florida, Tom Barwin
looks like he wanted to be ahead of the news cycle on the latest
homeless-related incident with the city’s police department. Barwin

said he made sure an internal investigation was opened as soon
as security video (below) emerged showing two cops
slamming a homeless suspect into a wall at a bus station.

Just this Tuesday, as Reason 24/7
noted, the ACLU released documents showing police officers
calling each other “bum hunters” and said Barwin was leading a “war
on the homeless.” The city manager objected, the Herald
Tribune
reports:

Barwin said the idea of the city waging a war on the
homeless is ludicrous. Rather, Sarasota’s large safety net and
wealth of services likely draw homeless to the area, he said.

But the city manager said that if police officers are acting
inappropriately Sarasota will not ignore it.

“If there is an individual who is communicating, thinking, behaving
in that manner then certainly that is something that needs to be
addressed,” he said.

Earlier this month, Sarasota police
arrested a homeless man for charging his cellphone in a city
park (theft of utilities, $500 bail). He was in jail for his first
day of work the next morning and fired. That incident
included the electricity being shut down for the park with no
one taking responsibility. The homeless man suggests police may
have targeted him after he took a photo, he claims, of an arrest of
another homeless man smoking a cigarette. With treatment like that,
it’s no wonder the homeless are drawn to the area?