Posted on 11/07/2001 3:59:48 PM PST by B4Ranch
Solana Beach 'bullying' homeless man, friends say By Dana Littlefield November 7, 2001 SOLANA BEACH -- Neighbors and local business owners are rallying behind a homeless man they believe is being treated unfairly by city and county officials. Robert Thomas Northcut, 49, who has lived on the streets of Solana Beach for more than a decade, was arrested last week on suspicion of trespassing on a city-owned traffic median where a war memorial sits. Sam Georges, a lawyer from Solana Beach, and Chris Tatem, owner of the Do-It-Yourself Dog Wash in Solana Beach, helped get Northcut out of jail. Now they and several other residents are working to handle his legal problems, including reuniting him with his dog, which was taken to a county animal shelter when he was arrested. "The only thing I own is that damn dog," Northcut said Monday while lying in the grass overlooking Fletcher Cove. "He's my dog and he's faithful to me." Even before Northcut's arrest, neighbors banded together to help him out and bring him food. They even cared for his dog, getting it neutered, vaccinated and registered with the county. "It's not one person; it's the whole community," said Tatem. They said that Northcut doesn't panhandle or bother their customers and that he just wants to be left alone with his dog to live outdoors. Putting him inside a building, Georges said, would be like "taking a coyote and chaining it in the garage." Northcut's German shepherd -- named Thomas Jefferson, or T.J. for short -- remains in custody at the county animal shelter in Carlsbad for lunging and barking at city and transit employees. The dog bit a man in May, according to animal control officials, and city staff members say it threatened several maintenance workers and one department head. Northcut admitted that his dog has bitten people, but said T.J. was just protecting his master. The dog had been abused before being rescued in Tijuana and nursed back to health by Northcut and Tatem. "He's a very feisty animal. He's addle-brained," Northcut said. "He's a lot like me. He's all nervous like me." Members of the county Dangerous Dog Task Force are expected to decide today whether to issue a notice declaring T.J. a public nuisance. If that happens, a hearing will follow, and the dog could be required to wear a muzzle or be fenced off from the public entirely. Northcut said he and T.J. set up camp at the war memorial after he heard reports on a portable radio of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For the next few days, Northcut, who said he is a Navy veteran, raised and lowered the U.S. flag on a pole near the memorial to half-staff to honor victims. "He was taking care of the war memorial," Georges said. "It was his effort to 9/11." He said that the city is "bullying" Northcut for crushing plants that surround the World War II memorial where Northcut and T.J. had been sleeping, and that the county should return his dog. "He's just lost without his dog," Georges said. "If the city doesn't want him around, there are definitely more humane ways to get him away from there." City officials said the traffic median, on Plaza Street and surrounded by cars heading to and from Fletcher Cove, is not a safe spot to hang around. A "No Trespassing" sign is posted near the flagpole, which shares the crowded median with a large fountain and the memorial. "There really isn't a place for people to congregate," said City Manager Bob Semple. "It wasn't meant to be used for people to gather there." Northcut has been cited several times for trespassing at other spots in the city. Jennifer Lynch, the Vista attorney whom Georges asked to appear in court last week on Northcut's behalf, disagreed with Semple. "To say that there's no trespassing at a war memorial is unconscionable," Lynch said. A court hearing on Northcut's trespassing charge is scheduled for Nov. 15. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
STAFF WRITER
NAMMARINE I was not thinking of calling a mod
I was doing the look see before I suggested that you might be a heartless son of a gun!
why are you so freaked over that?
redrock
When my uncle came back from Europe he carried with him a bag full of momentos (which I can't say what they were) and he spent years finding the guys who were sent back wounded so that each could have a momento. My dad spent years trying to find a shipmate who had loaned him a dollar so that he could give it back.
But, in answer to your question, everyone here is trying to do something positive for Mr. Northcut. Everyone here spends time making a better day for the rest of us just because they are here. Every person here, I know, does what they feel they are able to do and it is not up to you or me to judge that.
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