An Act of Desperation in Tacoma
A hungry and unemployed longshoreman smashes a store window to get arrested for a warm bed and food.
James Flannigan, a longshoreman, despondent, out of work and hungry, smashed a plate glass store window in the presence of a policeman in order that he might be arrested and provided with food and shelter. He waited on Twelfth Street for Officer La Roy to come up, and with a brick he stove in one of the store windows of the Wallace block.
“James Flannigan, a longshoreman, despondent, out of work and hungry, smashed a plate glass store window in the presence of a policeman in order that he might be arrested and provided with food and shelter.”
This act of 'criminalizing survival' to access state-provided shelter remains a hauntingly familiar feature of economic crises in American cities, where the safety net for the unhoused has historically been tied to the penal system.
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