Shocking body-cam video shows the agents ambushed Timber and grabbed his broken arm, which was visibly in a brace. Hearing his brother shout and thinking he was being robbed, Brooks Roberts grabbed his gun and wheeled his wheelchair outside the RV. Without any warning or identifying themselves as police, agents fired multiple gunshots at Brooks, hitting him in the back and knocking him into the mud. Forest Service police continued to fire on him even as he lay on the ground. Brooks has been hospitalized for more than two months and faces a lifetime of paralysis from the chest down and limited use of his right arm. The agents involved remain on duty.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Video Shows Local Family Violently Arrested and Severely Injured for Living in Park
Forest Service Police Permanently Paralyze Disabled Family Member
Boise, ID | August 21, 2023 – Attorneys for Brooks Roberts announced today they have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for Brooks’ violent arrest and injury while living in a camper in the Payette National Forest with his family.
In May of this year, undercover U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management police officers arrested Judy, Timber, and Brooks Roberts, who had been living in the camper after their landlord evicted them and they couldn’t find available space in shelters. A claim filed today by the Roberts’ attorneys at Ferguson Durham, PLLC and the WREST Collective documents how Forest Service agents falsely claimed to need a jump start for their vehicle in order to draw Timber Roberts out of his RV. Shocking body-cam video shows the agents ambushed Timber and grabbed his broken arm, which was visibly in a brace. Hearing his brother shout and thinking he was being robbed, Brooks Roberts grabbed his gun and wheeled his wheelchair outside the RV. Without any warning or identifying themselves as police, agents fired multiple gunshots at Brooks, hitting him in the back and knocking him into the mud. Forest Service police continued to fire on him even as he lay on the ground. Brooks has been hospitalized for more than two months and faces a lifetime of paralysis from the chest down and limited use of his right arm. The agents involved remain on duty.
Violent police interactions among people, particularly Black people, who have lost their housing are on the rise, and make it even harder for people to get back on their feet and into stable housing. This violent act did nothing to end the family’s homelessness and proves that communities cannot solve homelessness through policing. The family is calling on the city of Boise to invest in housing and supportive services instead.
“I ended up with frostbite on my feet and they were amputated,” said Judy Roberts. “I got social security disability, which they garnished for nonpayment of tickets for staying too long on forest land. We needed that money to get into an RV place. They should be using their resources to help people find a place to live instead of persecuting them.”
“How can we get on our feet when you keep ticketing us to take away our money that we could have used for housing?” Brooks Roberts added. “It just makes the problems amplified. If the person is struggling to find a place and then they get arrested, then they really have trouble, because they don’t have the ability to find a place when they’re in jail.”
Lawyers for the Roberts family urge the U.S. attorney’s office in Boise to drop the charges against the family. The family continues to face homelessness as well as increased medical costs; donations for the family can be made at https://gofund.me/e56466c5
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For national context:
Media Contact: Yuderis Verges, info@homelesslaw.org, 202-638-2535 Ext. 110
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Federal Police Use Violent Force Against Family Living in Park – Pattern of Violence Continues
Forest Service Police Injured Disabled Family Members
Washington, D.C. | August 23, 2023 – The National Coalition for Housing Justice (NCHJ) calls on the Biden-Harris administration to stop using federal police to respond to homelessness.
In May of this year, undercover U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management police officers violently arrested Judy, Timber, and Brooks Roberts for living in a camper in the Payette National Forest north of Boise, Idaho. They were forced to live in the park after their landlord evicted them and they couldn’t find available space in shelters.
Shocking body-cam video shared in a court filing today shows agents making false claims to lure the family outside, firing multiple gunshots at Brooks Roberts while he was in a wheelchair, hitting him in the back and continuing to shoot at him while he lay on the ground. Judy and Brooks are disabled and their disabilities were visible to agents. Due to the gunshot injuries, Brooks has been hospitalized for more than two months, and faces a lifetime of paralysis from the chest down and limited use of his right arm. The agents involved remain on duty.
This case is just one example of an ongoing pattern of increasing violence against unhoused people at the hands of federal agents. In February, NCHJ called on U.S. Park Service police to halt the forcible removal and arrest of unhoused people from McPherson Square in Washington, D.C. before the people in the encampment could be placed in housing. The federal government failed to put policies in place to stop encampment raids, and as a result, residents in McPherson Square were arrested, displaced, and disconnected from service providers who could help connect them to safe and secure homes.
Federal police also set the tone for local law enforcement and vigilantes. And when criminalization of homelessness combines with race, the results can be deadly, more so for Black people experiencing homelessness. In 2020, Orange County sheriff’s deputies supposedly trained for “homeless outreach” shot and killed Kurt Andras Reinhold during a stop for jaywalking. And earlier this year a white former U.S. Marine sergeant strangled Jordan Neely – a young Black man – on a subway car. Neely was a well-known entertainer in New York City who was homeless and expressing need for help when he was murdered.
As communities face rapidly rising rents and a severe shortage of housing, many like the Roberts family, Jordan Neely, and Kurt Andras Reinhold have nowhere to go. At the same time, new laws that criminalize homelessness have increased police interactions with vulnerable people, including arresting them for the basic survival activities such as sitting in public and sleeping in cars and tents. Criminalizing people who are unhoused and using police in response to homelessness opens the door to more brutality and discrimination, particularly in Black and Brown communities. Data clearly show that a police approach is expensive, diverts community resources that could be used for housing, disproportionately harms Black people and other people of color and is overall ineffective at solving homelessness. The only way to end homelessness is to stop the police contact in the first place.
We call on the Biden-Harris administration to issue an executive order eliminating all federal police activities in their response to homelessness, and instead to mandate a housing- and services-only approach that is rooted in choice, healing, and racial justice. Connecting individuals and families to housing and optional supportive services is the only effective way to solve homelessness.
The Roberts family continues to face homelessness as well as increased medical costs; donations for the family can be made at https://gofund.me/e56466c5
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