Local homeless advocate arrested in Orlando

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http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110613/ARTICLES/110619862/1109/sports?Title=Local-homeless-advocate-arrested-in-Orlando

Pat Fitzpatrick, an advocate for Gainesville’s homeless population, was arrested Monday in Orlando for feeding a group of people, thus defying the city’s ordinance that outlaws distributing food to more than 25 people in a public park without a permit.

Fitzpatrick, 61, and Ashley Albinson, 24, and Palmer Harrell, 22, both members of the group Orlando Food Not Bombs, were arrested for violating the ordinance Monday morning by “distributing pancakes, grits and potatoes to more than 35 people, most of them regulars at the twice-weekly feedings by Food Not Bombs,” the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Fitzpatrick, who ran unsuccessfully for a Gainesville City Commission seat three times, with his campaigns largely based on homeless issues, said before he went to Orlando that he hoped to get arrested there to draw attention to the issue.

He was booked at 12:16 p.m. at the Orange County jail and released a few hours later on $250 bond.

In a telephone interview, he said the police allowed the group to serve the people in line before arresting them, so the homeless and hungry were allowed to eat.

He said he went to Orlando to show “solidarity” with the Food Not Bombs group as several of its members have been arrested in the past two weeks under the ordinance, which was upheld by an appeals court in April, the Sentinel noted.