44 Counts of Homelessness – Eugene Weekly

Three times last February, Eugene police officers found Rod Adams, a 60-year-old homeless man, lying in a sleeping bag downtown in the middle of the night. They arrested, handcuffed and took him to Lane County Jail each time, where he stayed for three total days on trespassing charges.

Since Adams moved to Eugene nine years ago, police have arrested him 40 times on 44 counts of being homeless: trespassing, prohibited camping and violating park rules lead the laundry list of minor crimes, plus warrant arrests for missing scheduled court dates. Adams received 10 tickets last year, putting him in the top one percent of all people cited last year.

Never has Adams been charged with a felony or violent crime, but hes been booked 15 times in Lane County Jail, where hes spent 32 nights, jail records show.

And thats only the ones they document, Adams says. Every fucking day theyre in my face.

Once a middle-class citizen, a disgruntled Adams left his job in corporate America at a tech company and stopped making payments on his home, which was repossessed. He now spends his time documenting the class war happening on the streets of Eugene. Hes become infamous for videotaping police interactions with homeless people downtown.

Adams intervenes when he sees the unhoused being harassed and often spews vitriol at officers. Hes posted dozens of videos to his Facebook group, RE-volt, over the past year, sometimes documenting officers ticketing sleeping homeless people late at night and others times calling the cops fascists.

Now, fed up with a justice system that penalizes being poor, Adams is taking his three recent criminal trespass cases to jury trials, where he will invoke the necessity defense, arguing he had no choice but to commit the crimes because the city offered him no viable alternative.

Its a rarely used and rarely won defense, and Adams does not necessarily expect to win. But he says the trials are necessary work that has to be done and only a prelude to greater efforts to end criminalization of homelessness. He hopes it will encourage other homeless people to do the same.

THE SOFTKILL

Adams is thin, about 5-foot-9 with blue eyes and an untrimmed white ponytail and a beard. He wears a camo hat and black combat boots and lives off his military pension Eugene Weekly confirmed his veteran status but can no longer afford rent, healthcare and other basic needs. Many of his possessions have been stolen, but hes managed to hang on to an Acer laptop and out-of-service LG smartphone. Those, he says, will be stolen one day, too.

Adams maintains a list of all the homeless people whove died in Eugene and often invokes their names when yelling at the cops. He counted 25 deaths in 2016 alone. Some hes heard about from friends, others hes seen for himself lifeless bodies under the bridges. One of these days, he says, thats going to be him.

Many people are upset with me because I do yell at the cops, he says. I say nasty, foul things to them. But they take no responsibility for what they do to those people out there, and those people wind up dead. So I absolutely will never apologize for verbally abusing them.

Adams plans to subpoena Eugene police chief Pete Kerns in his upcoming trials to talk about compliance training. He says police are trained to subject homeless people and all marginalized communities to character assassination, dispossession and the psychological inferiority. Adams calls it the softkill.

Ken Neubeck, a longtime local homeless advocate, described Adams as principled and fearless passionate about his beliefs, but frustrated at the slow rate of change. Neubeck thinks a lot of Adams toughness and prickliness toward the police is a product of his experience on the streets.

If you give him a chance, his whole voice changes, Neubeck says. Hell be sitting beside me in the car as a passenger, and all the sudden hes much more relaxed, and hes friendly. Hes talkative and respectful. I dont think theres really a mean bone in his body, from what Ive been able to see.

Wayne Martin, a retired pastor who housed Adams in his basement for a week in 2013, says he has great loyalty to Adams. He described him as a poet, giving eloquent homilies about corporate demons and his belief in a sort of agrarian democracy. He says he sees a fire light up in Adams eyes when he gets on a roll while delivering a speech.

Rod has had to have strong legs to keep standing, Martin says. Hes a whimsical guy and I think that helps. I think hes been really insulted a lot, both his intelligence and his person. Hes in serious disregard about a system that treated him badly.

When police officers interact with Adams, he asks them for their business cards. If they comply, he emails them The Package, which consists of excerpts from three philosophical texts that he says are the minimum comprehensions necessary to address the failing state. One text asserts the main difference between the unhoused in America and those in other countries is the publics attitude toward them.

Adams says no police officer has ever responded to Adams emails and lately theyve stopped giving him their cards.

Neubeck uses the term structural classism to describe the systemic criminalization policies that Adams deems the softkill.

In 2008, for example, the city established a downtown public safety zone from which it could legally exclude people convicted of certain crimes. But according to a 2010 police activity report, almost 60 percent of the people excluded were homeless. Neubeck says laws like Eugenes camping ban may not appear discriminatory it prevents everyone from camping in the parks, not just the homeless but that they have a disproportionate negative impact on people who dont have anywhere else to go.

I think thats what Rod is principally upset about, Neubeck says. Not only does the city not offer enough help to house people and provide them emergency shelter, but on top of that it is punishing people for doing things outside that they have no choice but to do.

Homeless people can be arrested for things housed people do regularly in their homes: drinking, smoking and going to the bathroom are illegal in public spaces. Adams has been arrested for smoking, drinking, littering and even theft of electricity for having his laptop plugged into a wall power outlet behind an auto shop.

In 2014, Adams spent 11 days in jail for a noise disturbance that occurred six years prior.

Its the laws that are bad, Neubeck says, but police officers still use discretion to enforce them. So Adams takes his frustration out on them.

SHAKING COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Winning the necessity defense will be a tall order for Adams and his public defender, Ryan Gifford. They must prove that had Adams slept on private property due to: a specific threat of imminent danger; a necessity to act; and no practical alternative, while showing that the harm caused wasnt greater than the harm prevented.

Kathy Walker, a longtime Eugene resident who has dedicated much of her life to assisting the homeless, is helping Adams prepare for the trials and thinks theyve covered all their bases. Adams acquittal, she says, could set a precedent for future cases of homeless criminalization. A guilty ruling would only serve as evidence in an even bigger case, she says. A class action lawsuit could be possible, but expensive.

In 2016, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts tossed out six trespassing convictions against a homeless man, ruling that he should have had the opportunity to argue the necessity defense in front of a jury.

The prosecutors in Eugene may argue Adams could have spent the night at Eugene Mission, a local shelter. Adams responds, Im poor, I cant afford rent and Im not going to retire to the Mission, so that only leaves the street.

The prosecutors may argue that if Adams cant afford housing, he needs to find work. You just authorized wage slavery, Adams replies. What part of retirement dont you understand?

Adams often says the case is not about him. He does not care if the court finds he broke the law; if he can change the six jury members predispositions about homelessness, he says, hell have done his job.

It doesnt matter what happens to me, Adams says. What happens is people get shaken out of their cognitive dissonance, so my grandchildren dont have to grow up with this.

The first of Rod Adamss three trials begins 9 am May 31 at Eugene Municipal Court.

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44 Counts of Homelessness - Eugene Weekly