The Chattanooga Police Department will not give trespassing law exemptions to volunteers and nonprofit employees who venture onto private property to provide services to homeless encampments, Police Chief John Chambers said after the outreach community took issue with an email from a Chattanooga police officer.
Officer Brandon Watson sent an email, obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, to several city and county employees directly connected to outreach activities. In the email, Watson said that he had been responding to calls from property owners about suspicious vehicles, likely outreach workers providing services to residents of homeless encampments on private property.
He said the department would “trespass” the people, meaning asking them to leave and not return or face arrest.
“I will state this clearly so that there is no confusion: should PD respond to a private property for a trespass enforcement, everyone located on said property will be trespassed by the TCA by order of the property manager/owner,” Watson said in the email.
Word spread quickly through volunteer groups, religious organizations and nonprofits involved with doing outreach to homeless encampments, and many were shocked by the contents of the email because it represented a stance they say they have not seen from the Police Department before. But Chambers said, in an interview Monday, that the law has always been the law.