Homeless advocacy groups refute claim that city, LMPD are offering services, shelter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Video of a Louisville Metro Police lieutenant giving a citation to a homeless woman in labor has advocacy groups calling on the city's mayor to take action.

Those groups call the video embarrassing. Advocates said they are the ones working directly with the unhoused, and the city isn't offering them the services it claims it is.

Body camera footage of the Sept. 27 incident was released Thursday by LMPD, showing Lt. Caleb Stewart's interaction with a homeless woman who tells him she's in labor.

Moments later, he tells her she's being detained for unlawfully camping.

"We've warned you about this before, OK?" he said as he handed the citation to the woman as she sat on the ground.

In his vehicle, Stewart is heard narrating the incident and said "I don't believe for one second that this lady's gone into labor, but I called EMS, I asked for them code three just in case I'm wrong."

The woman's attorney said she gave birth later that day.

Now that the video has surfaced, local homeless advocacy groups want something to be done.

"There was no real crime to solve there. There was humanity to see there. There was dignity and respect. There was no streets being blocked. There was no sidewalks being blocked. This woman of course was on a mattress that she clearly couldn't carry around, and the fact that she was treated like that was terrible, and it was embarrassing," Shameka Parrish-Wright, executive director of VOCAL-KY, said.

VOCAL-KY is an organization dedicated to helping low-income people. Parrish-Wright is also a member of Louisville Metro Council.

"This is embarrassing for our city," she said. "It's embarrassing for our police department."

A crime-sweeping bill, known as the Safer Kentucky Act, took effect earlier this year making street camping illegal. It also makes repeat camping in public areas, such as streets or beneath overpasses, a misdemeanor.

Sponsors of the bill said officers would help the homeless find resources, but advocates say that's not happening.

"I watched that video two times," said Parrish-Wright. "None of those folks that they addressed were connected to resources, and this is what we know all too well on the ground."

Stewart's body camera video didn't only show the encounter with the pregnant woman. The city cleared out several homeless encampments that day.

Stewart, the head of LMPD's Downtown Area Patrol, along with two other officers, Metro Homeless Services and Waste Services, go around the city three times a week checking spots where people are known to camp. In an interview with Stewart on Dec. 4, he said when the patrol finds someone in violation of the law, it will first give that person a warning. If that individual is caught breaking the law again, they will receive a citation.

He also said officers check for four things if someone is in violation: camping in a prohibited location, enter area with intent to sleep or camp, area could not be designated camping area and person lacks authorization, the person has been warned before.

"The reality for her, and for anyone who's homeless in Kentucky, is that they're constantly and unavoidably breaking this law. The criminalization of poverty inevitably begets ugly and offensive enforcement actions," Ryan Dischinger, the woman's public defender, said in a statement to WDRB Thursday evening. "What she needed was help and compassion and instead she was met with state violence. Without assistance from police or the courts, she and her child are sheltered and healthy."

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg stands by what LMPD and the Homeless Division are doing, and said they're offering resources.

"We're making incredible progress, incredible progress in making our streets safer and healthier for individuals to get services and shelter when they're in crisis, and also safer and healthier for everyone else. That work will continue," Greenberg said Friday.

In its own statement on Thursday, LMPD said the officers offered her resources for shelter twice before this encounter, and she declined. Police said without the officer's intervention, "it is possible the baby would have been born without medical care."

But in the two hours of body camera footage from Sept. 27, you couldn't hear anyone offering help or services.

Advocates hope to draft a message to send to the mayor to get services to people in need, like those living on the city's streets.

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Homeless advocacy groups refute claim that city, LMPD are offering services, shelter