6 July 25th-July 31st, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Targeted by Tempe Austin Davis, on trial for feeding homeless people, faces ‘vindictive’ ban. BY TJ L’HEUREUX T he city of Tempe has already hauled Austin Davis into court for feeding the homeless without a permit. Now the city’s war on Davis has taken on a new front. On July 1, Davis said, a Tempe park ranger spitefully cited him for trespassing at Moeur Park, where he’d arrived after the park had closed to clean up trash. As a result, Davis has been banned from all Tempe parks in the Papago Park Preserve — impeding but not halting his efforts to feed the unhoused there — through August 2. The city already is engaged in a Tempe Municipal Court case against Davis, arguing that he violated the city’s special permit code by conducting “Sunday Picnics” for unhoused people in Tempe parks. The judge in the case denied the city’s request to prohibit Davis from holding the events and distributing food in the parks while the trial is ongoing. But now, it seems, the city has found another way to make Davis’ mission more difficult. “I’m trespassed from all the parks the homeless are ever at,” Davis told Phoenix New Times. “They’re basically saying it’s illegal for me to go to any of the parks to try to help anyone.” The latest chapter in Davis’ saga began when three unhoused people called him on July 1, he said. Park rangers were forcing them out of Moeur Park, which had closed, but the unhoused people told Davis there was garbage left behind that they hadn’t been able to clean up. When Davis arrived at the park, he noticed a ranger’s car was taking up three parking spaces, a violation for which Davis had been ticketed a month earlier. He remarked to the ranger, whom the citation identified as having the last name Fernandez, about the double standard. The comment went over poorly, Davis said. The ranger ticketed Davis for “curfew violation, interfering with duties and verbal aggression,” according to the citation. “She said, ‘Now the cops are coming, and it’s your fault if anyone here gets tres- passed.’ It was very obviously vindictive,” Davis said, adding that he regretted saying anything about the ranger’s parking job. Since then, Davis has been cited two more times for trespassing, on July 6 and 7. However, Davis doubts that park rangers had evidence that he was in the park on those days. Davis contends that he remained off park grass and on the side- walk, technically outside the park’s boundaries. Also, Davis didn’t receive those two citations until July 10. That day, he was driving near the park when he noticed “a very obvious undercover cop” following him. Davis pulled into a gas station and the officer followed, activating the unmarked vehicle’s blue and red lights after Davis parked. “They watched me the whole time and then followed me away from the park and away from the public to where I was alone at the gas station and served me these tickets from days ago,” Davis said. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just like, weird and creepy.” The city reintroduced park rangers in November, 15 years after it cut the program and a day before Greg Ruiz, then an interim deputy city manager, sent Davis a letter demanding he apply for a permit for the feedings. Though the first trespassing citation resulted in a month-long ban, it carried no associated fine. Davis is due in court on July 22 for the other two citations. A judge will decide if there is enough evidence to find him guilty. Touching grass Since being banned, Davis has engineered a workaround. Tempe officers told him if he touched the grass of the parks, he would be cited for violating the trespass order and possibly arrested. As a result, Davis has been rele- gated to the sidewalk, leaving volunteers to run the Sunday feedings. He continues to help the homeless eat and fill out intake forms for housing and treatment centers, though. For a few days, he sat on park-adjacent sidewalks, baked by the brutal Phoenix sun. Davis said he and volunteers now have set up a table at the edge of the park so he could sit down without touching park grass while helping people look for detox, rehabilitation and shelter programs. Davis isn’t the only person who isn’t allowed to touch park grass. The circum- stances he faces have much in common with several unhoused people whom Tempe officials have kept looking over their backs. “A lot of homeless people are trespassed from the parks, so this was also an oppor- tunity for those folks to sit on my side of the table, and volunteers would bring down food and water,” Davis told New Times on July 15. The arrangement also is apparently a headache for at least one Tempe officer assigned to watch Davis. In a YouTube video recorded by videog- rapher Jim Freedom, a Tempe police officer named Mitchell appeared troubled by having to monitor Davis during one night earlier this month. “I understand what you’re doing,” Mitchell told Davis in conversation Freedom captured on video. “I never had an issue with it. But that is above me. You know this whole entire issue is way above me.” Mitchell added, “I don’t like dealing with this stuff either,” Austin Davis, who is already fighting Tempe’s claim that he violated a special permit ordinance while feeding the homeless, is now banned from some city parks. (Photo by TJ L’Heureux) | NEWS | >> p 7
