Kansas City police arrested two volunteers with Kansas City Food Not Bombs on Sunday for trespassing in a parking lot where the group has been serving meals, the group said.
Two people were charged in Kansas City Municipal Court on Monday with trespassing for alleged violations at the address where the group serves food, according to court records.
The group — a volunteer, mutual aid organization that provides free, hot, vegan meals on Sundays in a parking lot in Kansas City’s Lykins neighborhood, near the intersection of Independence Avenue and Monroe Avenue — posted a video of the Jan. 4 arrests on social media Friday. The video shows a group of Kansas City police officers handcuffing two people in a parking lot and evicting other people from the area.
“I told you it’s on private property, and you’re passing,” says an officer in uniform as he attaches handcuffs to one person’s wrists.
Later in the video, a voice can be heard addressing the people gathered near the arrests: “You are passing. Leave. Or will you be handcuffed too. Does everyone understand? This is your warning. You can film whatever you want, welcome, but you are passing, and if you don’t leave now I will arrest you.”
Kansas City Food Not Bombs said in a social media post Wednesday that police forced all of its volunteers to leave the area and dispersed anyone coming to its dinner under threat of further arrests.
“Food is a human right,” the group said. “We have the right to public spaces, and the right to demonstration.”
In an email to The Star Saturday, Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department, said that police received “numerous complaints from nearby businesses and residents after asking this organization to leave their private property.” She said the police took an initial report on the complaints on January 1.
“The two individuals observed being arrested in the shared video had previously been dispatched and refused to leave, resulting in a response from KCPD,” she wrote.
Michael McConnell, a Kansas City resident and one of the two volunteers charged with trespassing, told The Star in an email Friday that he and the other volunteer were not informed they had been officially invaded until their arrest. McConnell confirmed that he and the other volunteer were arrested for allegedly picking up in the parking lot of the strip mall where the free lunch is given.
He said the group has been serving meals at that location for about 13 years, and has never had any negative encounters with Kansas City police before. In fact, he noted, the police department lists the group and its weekly meal as a community nutrition resource on its website.
They serve meals for 13 years
McConnell said some business owners in the area claimed that those who show up for the meals the group serves “caused problems in their businesses, allegedly shoplifting, and mess,” he said. The group was respectful and regularly cleaned up litter in the area, he said.
“We cannot be responsible for every action taken by one of the many neighbors we help at some point after they come from our tables,” he said.
Kansas City Food Not Bombs sets up an outdoor food line on the edge of the sidewalk for an hour to an hour and a half and serves 50-100 meals and hundreds of pounds of bread and produce each week, McConnell said. Items served include peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, soup, pasta, salad and coffee, and most of the food comes from grocery stores and restaurants and otherwise goes to waste, he said.
He said Kansas City Food Not Bombs planned to adapt its service setup to avoid trespassing charges in the future, and said the group hopes to continue to be good neighbors to the people and businesses on Independence Avenue.
“Like all the other Food Not Bombs groups,” he said, “we do this as a protest against the waste of war, the government’s choice not to solve poverty, and the environmental destruction caused by our food waste systems.”