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Fire Walk With Me

(38,893 posts)
Fri Apr 26, 2013, 08:32 PM Apr 2013

Pennsylvania law evicts minorities, domestic violence victims who call the police: [View all]

RT ‏@RT_com

Pennsylvania law evicts minorities, domestic violence victims who call the police:
http://rt.com/usa/pennsylvania-evicts-minorities-domestic-violence-480/

A Pennsylvania town is encouraging landlords to evict tenants who frequently call the police, a policy that directly impacts minorities and victims of domestic violence, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The suit, filed Friday in federal court, charged Norristown, Pennsylvania with allowing police to accuse Lakisha Briggs with a “disorderly behavior ordinance” after she called police for a third time on May 23, 2012. Briggs claimed she was threatened with eviction weeks after police officers responded to a domestic violence call from her home in which an abuser “chased Ms. Briggs down the alley with a brick and followed her to her house, where he attacked her.”

After the officers arrested her boyfriend, one turned to Briggs and told her, “You are on three strikes. We’re going to have your landlord evict you,” as quoted by the ACLU.

The “disorderly behavior” violation financially penalizes a landlord when a tenant calls the police three times in a four-month period. The ACLU claims that the restriction infringes on renters' First Amendment right to petition the government and stands in contrast with the Violence Against Women Act, which protects female abuse victims from the threat of eviction.

(More at the link.)

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