Miami homeless taken off streets against their will ahead of Irma: report

The Associated Press reported Friday that police officers are partnering with psychiatrists and social workers to remove homeless people from the streets of Miami, whether they want to go or not.

Police are drawing on the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows police to institutionalize people believed to be dangers to themselves or others.

“We’re going out and every single homeless person who is unwilling to come off the street, we are likely going to involuntarily Baker Act them,” Ron Book, a Miami social worker, told the AP.

“I am not going to sign suicide notes for people who are homeless in my community. I am just not going to do it,” Book added. “That’s why you have a Baker Act. It’s there to protect those who can’t otherwise protect themselves.”

{mosads}In one instance, reporters watched as police officers handcuffed an elderly man who refused help from police and a psychiatrist who wanted him to go to a shelter.

“We are here to help you. Listen to me. You are being very aggressive. We are trying to help you,” one officer said, according to the report. “It’s very dangerous out here.”

“You are trying to make me go somewhere I don’t want to go,” the man insisted before he was handcuffed.

The Baker Act allows any officer with a reasonable suspicion of a suspect’s mental illness to detain that suspect for further evaluation if they are a danger to themselves or others, according to the report.

“A person who has a history of mental illness and who is staying in harm’s way, and doesn’t have a logical cohesion of what is right or what is wrong at that point, is a harm to himself, and at that point we can Baker Act them for his own protection,” Dr. Mohammad Nisar said.

Book reported that his organization has already driven more than 400 members of Miami’s estimated 1,100 homeless residents to shelters. About 600 are estimated to still be on the streets amid a mandatory evacuation order.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed the mandatory evacuation order earlier this week, warning residents that “we cannot save you in the middle of the storm.”