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Attorney of Vegas man arrested at Trump rally pleads not guilty
What I learned reporting in cities that take belongings from homeless people
By City News Service
By Nicole Santa Cruz, ProPublica
A
Las Vegas man arrested at a Donald Trump rally in Coachella last year was not present in court Thursday, with his attorney pleading not guilty to a pair of charges on his behalf. Vem Miller’s attorney Angela Friedrichs entered the not guilty pleas to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a loaded firearm in a public place and an additional count of driving or parking a vehicle without evidence of registration, according to Thalia Hayden of the Riverside County District Attorney’s office and case records. The defendant is due in court for a pretrial hearing on March 11. Miller, 49, was arrested Oct. 12. Riverside County sheriff’s deputies assigned to the rally contacted the driver of a black SUV, later identified as Miller, at a checkpoint near
Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks to reporters Oct. 13 following the arrest of a man in possession of firearms at a Donald Trump rally in Coachella. | Photo courtesy of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department/Facebook
They allegedly found Miller in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun and a highcapacity magazine. At a news confer-
they noticed the interior of his vehicle “was in disarray,” claiming that the vehicle had a fake license plate and the suspect had “multiple”
Vem Miller. | Photo courtesy of vemmiller/Instagram
the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive before Trump’s arrival, sheriff’s officials said.
ence the next day, Sheriff Chad Bianco said deputies detained the suspect at a second checkpoint after
fake passports and fake driver licenses with different names. The sheriff said the vehi-
cle’s license plate, which he called “homemade,” was indicative that Miller was a part of a “sovereign citizens” movement, whose followers do not believe they are subject to any government regulations, including those for guns and vehicles. Miller later “flatly denied” that, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Bianco also asserted that he believed “We probably stopped another assassination attempt,” referring two other recent attempts on Trump’s life, despite Miller’s claim that he was not there to harm the former president. In comments to Southern California News Group, Miller said he supports Trump and only had the guns for protection. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody,” Miller told the newspaper group. Miller later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Nevada against Bianco and some deputies, alleging defamation of character.
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: Swept Away: When Cities Take Belongings From Vulnerable Residents More in this series On a May afternoon, Teresa Stratton sat on her walker near a freeway in Portland, Oregon, talking about how much she wanted to live inside. She missed sleeping uninterrupted in a bed and having running water. When you live outside, “the dirt embeds in your skin,” the 61-year-old said. “You have to pick it out, because it just doesn’t come out anymore.” Living inside would also mean no longer having her belongings repeatedly confiscated by crews the city hires to clear encampments. These encounters, commonly known as “sweeps,” are the “biggest letdown in the world,” she said, noting that she lost the ashes of her late husband to a sweep. Over the past year, my colleagues Ruth Talbot, Asia Fields, Maya Miller and I have investigated how cities have sometimes ignored their own policies and court orders, which has resulted in them taking homeless people’s belongings during encampment clearings. We also found that some cities have failed to store the property so it could be returned. People told us about local governments taking everything from tents and sleeping bags to journals, pictures and mementos. Even when cities are ordered to stop seizing belongings and to provide storage for the property they take, we found that people are rarely reunited with their possessions. The losses are traumatizing, can worsen health outcomes, and can make it harder for people like Stratton to find stability and get back inside. Our reporting is particularly relevant because cities have recently passed new camping bans or started enforcing ones already on the books following a Supreme Court decision in June that allows local officials to punish people for sleeping outside, even if shelter isn’t available. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to ban urban camping and “get the homeless off our streets,” by creating “tent cities” and by making it easier to institutionalize people with severe mental illness. “Our once-great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug addicted, and the violent and dangerously deranged. We are making many suffer for the whims of a deeply unwell few, and they are unwell indeed,” he said in a campaign video. But our reporting shows there are more effective and compassionate ways for cities to deal with these issues. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness earlier this year released updated strategies for addressing encampments “humanely and effectively,” advising communities to treat encampment responses with the same urgency they would any other crises — such as tornadoes or wildfires. The council recommends providing 30 days’ notice before a removal and giving people two days to pack, unless there’s an urgent public health and safety issue. (Most cities don’t See Homeless Page 24