Modesto, Stanislaus put Escalon on notice over alleged homeless dumping
Modesto and Stanislaus County have put Escalon on notice after police in the small San Joaquin County city last week dropped off two homeless people here.
Modesto City Manager Joe Lopez and Stanislaus County CEO Jody Hayes sent a letter Monday to Escalon City Manager Tammy Alcantor outlining their concerns, requesting more information about the incident, and stating they will file a request for records regarding any other instances of Escalon police doing this.
“This action appears only to be an attempt to avoid responsibility for individuals in your community and place the burden on another City in a completely different County,” Lopez and Hayes wrote about last week’s incident.
Alcantor said her city will comply with the information request and said her Police Department has offered to share the police body camera footage of the incident. She said Escalon does not have a policy or practice of dumping homeless people in other communities.
“The perception in this case may seem that way,” she said, “but that is not our policy.”
An Escalon police officer Aug. 8 drove a homeless man and woman to Modesto after, according to Escalon police, the couple asked to be taken to the Budgetel Inn & Suites on McHenry Avenue. Escalon Police Chief Mike Borges has said the man had several hundred dollars and wanted to go to the motel. Escalon is about 10 miles north of Modesto.
Borges has said the man and woman changed their minds about the Budgetel, and the officer dropped them off in the Rite Aid parking lot at McHenry and Briggsmore avenues.
“If I was dumping homeless people in Modesto, I certainly would not have dumped them in one of the busiest intersections (in broad daylight) in Modesto with a black and white,” Borges said last week, adding his only disappointment is the officer listened to the couple and did not drop them off at the Budgetel.
But Modesto Police Chief Galen Carroll called this “straight out dumping” of one city’s problems onto another. He said the couple camped out at the Rite Aid parking lot for a couple of days, generating complaints his officers responded to.
He said officers’ last contact with the couple was two days ago at the Bank of the West on McHenry Avenue, about 1 1/2 miles north of the Rite Aid. Carroll said the couple asked for a ride back to Escalon, and officers declined. “We don’t want to engage in tit for tat,” he said.
Authorities identified the couple as Dante Ciraolo, 57, and Andrea Caracciolo, 51. A passerby took a photograph of the Escalon officer dropping the two off last week in the Rite Aid parking lot with their possessions.
The photo was posted on Facebook and generated lots of comments from Modesto-area residents who claim other cities send their homeless here.
But experts on homelessness say it is an urban myth among cities that they are the dumping grounds for other cities’ homeless people. And while dumping can occur, locals make up the vast majority of a city’s homeless population.
This incident comes as Stanislaus County attempts to open a temporary homeless shelter at the site of its Scenic Drive government center. The proposal has drawn opposition from residents of the nearby La Loma neighborhood.
In their letter, Lopez and Hayes wrote that a thorough search turned up that the man and woman had not lived in Stanislaus County or received help through the social services system, but have long histories of criminal activity in the Bay Area and San Joaquin County, including in Escalon.
“Simply put,” Hayes and Lopez wrote, “it is clear that members of the Escalon Police Department transported two homeless individuals from Escalon into Modesto, while knowing those individuals had significant criminal backgrounds, no history of residence in Stanislaus County, and have caused significant disruption in the City of Escalon.”
The letter did not detail those criminal offenses.
Alcantor said the homeless man and woman appear to be connected to Modesto. She said she believes the man once lived with a brother here, and the man told officers he and the woman had received services here.
“It is my understanding that both of these individuals have gotten services in Modesto,” Alcantor said.
She said Escalon has limited services for the homeless and does not have a shelter. Emil’s Motel — the city’s only motel — confirmed last week that while the man had been a guest in the past he was no longer welcome. The man has family in Escalon but is estranged from them.
Alcantor said Escalon officers can provide or arrange transportation for homeless people and transients to where they can find shelter and services. She said that is what Escalon police were attempting to do last week. “Our officer was trying to do a good deed,” she said. “Unfortunately it has been perceived differently.”