© Hawaii News now
"I got tired of telling people I'm trying to pass laws," state Rep. Tom Brower told Hawaii News Now. "I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets."
Brower showed the TV News crew how he scours streets for shopping carts that homeless people use to transport their belongings and then and uses a sledgehammer to destroy them.
"I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them," he explained. "I also create a situation where those carts can't be pushed around the city. I think it's a good thing."
Mental Health America of Hawaii Executive Director Marya Grambs said that Brower's tactics were sending the wrong message.
"His message to the public is that it's okay to commit acts of violence against homeless people, against vulnerable people. It's okay for vigilante justice," she noted.
And Connie Mitchell of the Institute for Human Services pointed out that the practice could be dangerous for everyone involved.
"There are some people who are not that stable and maybe drug-affected that could really react to him," Mitchell said.
Brower insisted to Hawaii News Now that he had not yet taken a shopping cart out of the hands of a homeless person, but he didn't rule it out.
In the end, the sledgehammer-wielding lawmaker did not explain how destroying shopping carts would reduce homelessness.
Watch this video from Hawaii News Now, broadcast Nov. 18, 2013.
Reader Comments
Those people's possessions, no matter how poor they are, are still their possessions.... The story is a little vague though it seems as if this beacon of a politician and citizen is unlawfully destroying other people's property and creating a litter problem by making the carts not able to be pushed around... On top of that it is akin to childish vandalism...
I think it would be great if a bunch of stand up citizens broke into his home, and smashed all of his possessions with a sledge hammer......
Sterilizing the homeless like the SS did?
The very first sentence should be re-worded "...he wanted to do something DEstructive to solve the state's homeless situation." There is nothing constructive about what he is doing. I wonder how he would react to someone taking a sledge hammer to his possessions? I'd pay to see it.
The Golden Rule.....Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I would not wish to be in his shoes