Commentary on Camelot and Hate Crimes
By Eduardo Lauriano
I am writing this to let people know about the hate crimes directed at homeless people on the streets of Cleveland, from building materials thrown from construction sites to bottles and cans from moving vehicles. We have seen violence against homeless people, such as stealing book bags, radios, tents, and other items. These are not residents of the City of Cleveland or homeless people, they are people who don’t like homeless people and kick us around.
There has been targeting of homeless people by people who don’t like homeless people. I have gotten into a home, but I cannot visit my friends on E. 20th and Superior. My family gets pushed around by the Cleveland police every time I go down there. I have made a police report in the past against the people who were throwing the bottles. I had the plate number and make of the car, and the Police never did anything about it. I even went to the prosecutor’s office and reported this incident. The prosecutors never did anything about it. So these hate crimes are still happening, the same cars, the same people are still doing this.
I would like to let the public know that we are not at fault for this happening. People are really doing this to us, taking our stuff, abusing us and sticking their private parts out at us.
I also want to touch on what happened since the assault on Camelot. We have a new addition, a newborn, his name is Ferin Camelot Lauriano, he weighted 8 lbs. 6 oz. And was 19 inches long when he was born October 30th tat 8:42 p.m. He is known as Camelot. Pamela Wagner is his mother; she is recovering and she is doing good, she has over 1,100 staples in her stomach and she is getting back on her feet. I went to surgery for hernia and had 12 staples in my stomach; I am recovering and coming around now.
On East 21st and Superior we were fighting with those throwing bottles for about one or two hours. We never saw city cars, no police, no security, nothing. We were fighting and nobody from the city heard or saw anything. Just to show you thta the City doesn’t care about the homeless people. Remember that Mayor Michael White directed the police to sweep homeless people off the street last year at this time November & December. When he came to office, he swept the homeless and I was one of them. Once I was taken outside the city. The second time, I was taken to the Justice Center and arrested for sleeping on Public Square.
I also wanted to say something about the City break in. City Hall was broken into. The computers and disks were allegedly taken that I believe had information about Camelot. The paperwork about the future of the building is unclear. They weren’t going to do anything with that building they just wanted us out of there. The paperwork and everything is gone. We believe he Mayor had something to do with it because there wasn’t a forced entry into City Hall. I think that somebody from inside City Hall went in there and took all the stuff that we needed. We cleaned it up, ran off the drug pushers, the prostitutes and took it over for the homeless people and talked to Councilwoman Lewis. We cleaned up Camelot.
The city break in has something to do with the Mayor, the police, and city officials because they refuse to talk to us. When we went to court they said they were going to get us housing, we are still out here homeless. Camelot people are still out here homeless, freezing sick & going in to hospitals. The city scheduled one day to meet with us after the court hearing. They cancelled, because they wanted to meet with the attorneys and not with the homeless people themselves. That is what we were trying to express to the judge: we wanted to talk to the city officials, because only the homeless know what the homeless need. The city and a bunch of lawyers don’t know what the homeless need.
Copyright Homeless Grapevine – Issue 45 January 2001