The LAPD's unlikely defender

Homeless advocate Ted Hayes was shot by police, but he praised the cops and blasted violent protesters for drowning out his message.

By Cliff Barney

Aug 18, 2000 | On Monday night, with no warning, Los Angeles police who were herding concertgoers from the Rage Against the Machine concert outside the Democratic National Convention shot homeless activist Ted Hayes with a steel beanbag; and then, while he lay barely conscious and gasping for breath on the ground, flipped him on his belly, stood on his head and neck and cuffed his hands behind him.

One of the night's most memorable images was a picture of Hayes, splayed on the ground on top of the American flag he carried, which ran prominently in the Los Angeles Times. It was the beginning of a week that featured a mild form of martial law as the Democrats gathered at Staples Center mostly oblivious.

The day after his shooting, just out of the hospital, Hayes rather predictably held an angry press conference. But unpredictably, he blasted the protesters and praised the police. In Hayes' view, the demonstrators were at best spoiled white kids, and at worst evil, violent anarchists up to no good.

"Those people robbed the homeless people's freedom of speech last night," he said. "Theyre quick to step over the homeless people, and our cause, to make their noise. Has anybody heard today what the message of the demonstrators is? Have you heard anything about corporate greed and how they are actually oppressing people? Have we heard anything about the corrupt politics of the Democrats?" Long drawn-out sneer: "Noooo-o-o ... all we hear about is ruckus and tear gas and fighting and cops and robbers."

Just to make sure people didn't misunderstand, on Wednesday Hayes went on Fox News Network from a skybox in the very Staples Center outside which he had been shot, and used the occasion to denounce the American Civil Liberties Union for filing suit against the police who had shot him.

And he confessed to KPFK, the local Pacifica radio station, that his homeless convention had been a disaster, shunned by carpetbagging protesters, unable to attract local support because of what he calls the indifference of the "homeless-industrial complex" of social agencies, the message lost in the din of convention hoopla.

Thus did Ted Hayes become a sideshow in the grand media extravaganza from Los Angeles. He's a quixotic figure who shuns his allies and embraces the enemy, a homeless leader who can rally only a couple of dozen people to his cause among all the 40,000 homeless of Los Angeles.

Hayes was furious that news about the protesters' violent clashes with police drowned out his political message. But only by virtue of being shot did Hayes get the media's attention -- an irony that wasn't entirely lost on him.

Few locals were surprised when Hayes got out of the hospital and praised the police. They smiled and said that's just Ted; he is well known in Los Angeles for an unwavering dedication to nonviolence and a very practical bent for getting on with the authorities. Homeless people commit nonviolent crimes every day, he points out, referring to their need to deposit human waste in the streets, illegally. The police are thus a powerful natural enemy who must be engaged diplomatically.

Hayes lives in a homeless encampment called Dome Village, a score or so of Bucky Fuller domes, each 20 or so feet across and 10 feet high at the apex, located just over the Harbor Freeway from downtown L.A. and around the corner from the Medici Suites. A longtime L.A. activist, he agitates for a systemic approach to homelessness through a kind of national Marshall Plan headed by a Cabinet officer, a post for which he is a volunteer. Dome Village also houses a few of the homeless who rally around this idea.

Next Page: He marched up to the cops, and they shot him

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