Getting arrested for feeding hungry people- Food Not Bombs

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone, and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together, we are the Ace Couple. And today I am going to tell you the story of my face-off with one dozen KCPD police officers, and how I nearly got arrested for feeding the community. While a couple of my friends actually did. And even though this is a bit of a personal storytime, more importantly, we’re going to be talking about protest, mutual aid, and the organization I work with where all of this transpired, Food Not Bombs. The big picture of Food Not Bombs is that it is a global movement comprising a variety of independent local collectives which operate under the anarchist principles of group autonomy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical leadership, nonviolent direct action, veganism, and so much more. The first chapter of Food Not Bombs was created in 1980 and ever since then has become a global phenomenon combating hunger, poverty, homelessness, as well as a protest against war and violence.

Courtney: But what does that look like on a local scale, an individual chapter? Well, every single one is going to look a little bit different, but here in our Kansas City chapter, we reclaim food, much of which is diverted from waste streams. There is a disgusting amount of food waste in this country, much of which, I’m not even talking about, you know, clean your plate. I think a lot of Americans quite unfortunately grew up with a parental figure saying, you better clean your plate before you leave this table, ’cause there’s starving kids in Africa, you know. We’re not talking about individual household situations, we’re talking about corporate food waste, industrial food waste.

Courtney: Grocery stores throw out so much food that is often still very much edible at the time it hits the dumpster.

Royce: And there are a lot of reasons for that. The most obvious or easiest to explain is the fact that there are differing labeling requirements. Like, there are some foods that have expiration dates, which are more severe warnings, and then there are other packages that have best-by dates. And sometimes that’s like a quality control, basically. I think there are some regulations being considered right now to standardize those a little bit to try to avoid food waste, but a lot of things end up out of the stores due to some combination of internal rules or external protocols, and without other channels in place, those just end up in the trash.

Courtney: Absolutely.

Royce: Another one is, um, this is something you were telling me about the other day, something- there was a packaging error. Something was mentioned as being, what was it? Maybe it was labeled as gluten-free, but it was not gluten-free or something like that.

Courtney: Yes, absolutely. And this, we’re talking several industrial pallets of, like, vegan chicken that you would normally see in a grocery store, if you’ve got a grocery store that has a vegan or health food section. It’s a brand I’d seen before, I’d been familiar with. Perfectly good food, the packaging was just misprinted. Obviously you can’t sell people a package that says gluten-free right on the bag if it’s not gluten-free, because that is a health issue, yes, so you can’t put it in stores and sell it the conventional way, but what are you gonna do with it? In a lot of situations like that, that food just gets thrown away. Why not give it to someone who, I don’t know, could still eat it but doesn’t have a gluten sensitivity, someone who doesn’t have Celiacs. We’ve built enough relationships with other local organizations that luckily, at least some of the time when things like that happen, we get notified and then we can pick up that food and we can distribute it safely because we know this is not gluten-free. We’re not giving it to anyone in this package. What we’re actually doing is we are cooking the food and we are making a hot meal to give out completely free to anyone and everyone who wants to join us.

Courtney: And it’s not even food either that this happens to, right? Hygiene products might pass their sell-by date and get thrown out. I’m sure lots of people working in entry-level jobs at grocery stores, convenience stores have seen this kind of waste happens very often. Employees who themselves are not making a living wage are ordered to throw out perfectly good food and produce. And it truly is sickening.

Courtney: In Kansas City alone, the metro area, Kansas City, it has been estimated in recent years that our metro area alone throws out 400,000 tons of food a year. 400,000 tons of food.

Royce: I had to find the quickest comparison for a big number I could think of, and that’s like nine Titanics.

Courtney: Nine Titanics of food go into the landfill in Kansas City alone. Now blow that up to all of the US, all of North America, all of the world. Sickening. There is enough food for everyone. The fact that there are people who are going hungry because of poverty, because of food deserts, lack of access, is criminal. And that example you mentioned of the mislabeled frozen food, That’s just something that happens every once in a while. We aren’t getting, you know, large pallets of frozen meals every single week. It might happen a few times a year, but on a weekly basis, what we are able to get is a heck of a lot of fresh produce and bags of bread, bakery items. So with the connections that we have pre-established, we have some members of our chapter who throughout the week will pick up these donations. And then every Sunday we get together and look at what we have. What did we get this week? What can we make with it? And we make the main dish, which is always hot, always home-cooked, always vegan. And it’s a really neat process where we can exercise our creativity, we can feed the community while also learning from one another and learning new skills, learning new recipes. Since we do have to kind of think on our toes. There was one week we happened to get a ton of tortillas. That’s not something we see every week, but hey, looks like we’re making tacos this week because look at all these tortillas we have. So it’s, it’s very exciting. And there have been weeks where I would say easily we have given out 100 meals to the community.

Courtney: In addition to our main dish, we usually have some type of roasted veggie side. Make a cold fresh vegetable salad, and we get enough fruit, we always have fruit salad as well. Very popular. Sometimes we’ll get excess bananas and we’ll be able to bake banana bread, or we’ll have a ton of apples. Last fall we had so many apples donated that I brought boxes and boxes of apples back home to bake apple pies between our servings so I could bring it to the next serving. It was wonderful. We work with what we’ve got and we often find that we get more than enough.

Courtney: Because of all the bread donations we get, we also sit and make as many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as we can. In addition to our hot meals, here, have a PB&J for the road. Individually wrap them in foil. We’ll sit around the tables and we will debate the best technique for making PB&Js. Everyone who volunteers with our chapter has their own method for making a PB&J the way they like it. Do you like it with more peanut butter? Do you like it with more jelly? Do you spread it on one piece of bread or both of them?

Courtney: And then everything left over that we either didn’t have the time or the space or an ability to cook gets distributed as groceries. We’re out there with grocery bags giving it out to the community for free. Sometimes hundreds of pounds worth of groceries. Mentioned hygiene products as well. Sometimes we get hygiene products also diverted from waste streams. And because we are not a nonprofit organization, we are protesters. We are here saying that with the billions of dollars in funding that goes to war, maybe we should be spending some of that money feeding people. Thus, Food Not Bombs. What a concept.

Courtney: But we’ll even have nonprofits who will bring us hygiene products that like, just barely missed the expiration date. Now, if you were in your own home and you saw a little bottle of shampoo was like, expired by a month, you’d go, oh, that’s still good.

Royce: I don’t think I have ever looked at a soap or shampoo or conditioner bottle and read the expiration.

Courtney: Well, things like that.

Royce: I didn’t even think about that.

Courtney: There are things like even shelters that might say, you know what, we can no longer give out these products because we have our own rules, we have our own regulations. But if it’s still good to use, we can give it out. And there are people who are more than happy to take it. But it’s not even expirables or perishable things. We’ve gotten socks, like hospital socks, warm hospital socks in the winter that many people would be grateful to have. Dumpsters full, still in plastic wrap, get thrown out from hospitals. We had a joke one week that the socks were expired.

Royce: Do you remember, was that a hospital or a medical supply-like warehouse? Because I remember you-

Courtney: I don’t recall.

Royce: This was a particularly egregious form of waste because like you said, it was a bunch of individually wrapped socks thrown out for no observable reason.

Courtney: Oh, and the volunteer who works at that facility that was throwing it all out came and said there were several dumpsters full of these, and I brought as much as can fit in my car.

Courtney: But this doesn’t even scratch the surface. So once we finish cooking the food, our local chapter has been going to serve at the same place on a public sidewalk in one of the more impoverished areas of town, undisturbed for at least 13 years. Until January 2026. I don’t even remember what I had going on this day. But usually, I go to help prepare and cook the food ahead of time, and often I’m using my car to help transport to our serving location as well. But this particular day, I had something else going on, couldn’t come to food prep, so I was just gonna meet everybody at our serving location. And I happen to be the very first one on the site. So I stop, I park my car, and I’m waiting a few minutes because nobody else is here yet. And of course, some of our guests know when we’re gonna be there, they start congregating a little bit early, so I saw, you know, a small line start to form on the sidewalk near where we set up our tables. And then I see about 10 or 12 cops descend on that small handful of folks from my car. So I immediately go, oh no, no, no, jump out of my car. One of the guys who was standing there is a regular of ours. I see him almost every single week. So I call out his name, call him over, and I say, what did they just say to you? And he looks at me and he said, oh, the police officers just said no food today. You have to leave. I said, well, that’s not right. Hang on a minute. Let me go talk to them.

Courtney: So picture, if you will, 10 or 12 cops standing in a semicircle facing me, standing there with my cane trying to ask them exactly what the heck is up? And they conveyed to me that they were here to shut us down. They said we are trespassing on private property. I said, well, we serve on the public sidewalk, actually. And they said, well, you also can’t block the sidewalk. I said, we don’t. And mind you, accessibility is obviously a very important thing to me. We have some regulars who come through our line who are themselves disabled. We have some wheelchair users who come through our line. We always have a perfectly clear sidewalk. People are able to walk in front of our tables unhindered as much as is within our power to do so. And this is a large public sidewalk, mind you. It is right next to a bus stop, and then there’s a Grassy area easement where we actually set our tables up on the grass so that we keep extra sidewalk space.

Courtney: And before anyone else got there, I even explained to them because, you see, a few weeks earlier— to paint a picture for you, this sidewalk is in front of a strip mall that has three different businesses. It is an enormous parking lot because it is shared by all three of these businesses. The sidewalk is nowhere near the front doors of these businesses because of the size of the parking lot. And all of these years, including before these businesses operated in this building, our folks transporting the food would park at the very far end of this parking lot next to the sidewalk and unload our food.

Courtney: And so a few weeks before this, The managers of one of these three businesses: Buy the Pound, which is a thrift store operated by a nonprofit who you would think would be very much on our side of helping the community, talked to a couple of our folks, uh, basically expressing concern that we were leaving a mess after our serve, which is very far from the truth, in fact. Because not too long ago, they removed from this bus stop not only the bench to sit and wait for the bus, but also the garbage can. After that happened, we started bringing our own pop-up garbage can. We also started bringing our own pop-up bench so that folks could sit and eat if they weren’t taking their food to go. So if anything, the hour in which we serve our food and distribute our groceries and any clothing and hygiene donations that we have are all cleaned up much easier than any miscellaneous bypasser throughout the week. Who would have thought? You start taking down public trash cans and trash starts accumulating in places that aren’t trash cans.

Courtney: But they, they showed us pictures of like, hey, here is the mess that we found when we came into work Monday morning in front of our store. And it was like a picture of a hot dog. And, uh, no, we don’t serve hot dogs. Actually, it is well documented that all of the food we cook is vegan. And we told them, you know, we bring our own trash cans, we clean up after ourselves, but after we leave, you know, Monday morning is not something we can be responsible for, especially when it’s not food that we even served.

Courtney: But you know who does serve hot dogs? The business that shares a building directly next door to that buy-the-pound. It’s called Fruitopia. They have hot dogs on their menu. I don’t know where that hot dog came from. It could have been a food truck, could have come from any old place. But they decided to blame us for this.

Courtney: The following week, we had some Titan security guards come and talk to us. I actually have video of this incident where they told us, we love what you guys do, keep up the good work. We love what you do, we just can’t have you guys parking on this parking lot anymore. They said the businesses don’t want it cluttering up their parking lot spaces if you’re not going to actually patronize the business yourself. And we said, okay, that sounds fair.

Courtney: Now mind you, a lot of our volunteers do actually patronize those businesses. The 3rd business in this strip mall is a Family Dollar where we have frequently gone in if we’ve ever run out of supplies. If we’ve run out of silverware, for instance, run into the Family Dollar and grab some more. Run out of serving containers, run into the Family Dollar.

Royce: One small clarification: tightened security is a very local thing. But this is a private firm of varying security people. They do like surveillance and patrols and whatnot and have officers for companies that want to hire someone to do security for the building or the property. It just occurred to me that most people in most places would not be familiar with Titan security people.

Courtney: I mean, it’s our local rent-a-cops, you know? And their conversation with us was very nice and polite and cordial. And we told them, okay, not a problem. We can show up, unload our food, and then move our cars to the street, you know, around the corner, around the block. They were like, great, appreciate you guys. Problem solved, right? Right? So that’s what we did after that request. We showed up, unloaded our food, moved our cars to the street, and we heard nothing else until they sent a dozen cops who were waiting and ready for us before the food even arrived.

Courtney: So I’m here at the back of this parking lot that is currently being taken up by a dozen cops, and I told them, you know, we talked to the Titan Security guys just a few weeks ago, and they told us that they love what we’re doing, we just have to move our cars. So ever since then, we’ve been unloading our food and then moving our cars. And they said, we don’t care. They said, you also can’t be blocking the sidewalk. I said, we don’t block the sidewalk. And we went in circles a couple of times because they clearly had this talking point ready about not blocking the sidewalk. I said, we don’t block the sidewalk. You’re welcome to verify this for yourself, but everybody can walk through the sidewalk every single week we show up. And they said, you’re just gonna have to find somewhere else to serve the food. And it was at this point that I reminded them, we are actually listed on the KCPD website as a food resource that tells exactly where we serve our food, when, the name of the organization, Food Not Bombs, So I said, we’re on your website as a resource. You know that we do this and you publicly advertise it. And they said, well, that doesn’t matter anymore because the businesses don’t want you here. And I said, well, the businesses don’t control the public sidewalk. And they said, they do control their parking lot, which is private property. And I said, we haven’t been parking on the parking lot since a few weeks ago when the Titan guys told us not to. And they said, yeah, well, you still can’t block the sidewalk.

Courtney: At this point, the food is starting to show up in a few vehicles, so of course, everyone just sees me facing a dozen cops. So everybody is parking, getting out of their cars as fast as possible, asking what on earth is happening. And chaos erupts. Because the cops then are not all just focused on me, they’re trying to spread out to everyone who just showed up.

Courtney: One of our guys, the second one who ended up getting arrested this day, holding a box of strawberries, huge box, beautiful, delicious strawberries, just prepared to set it out where we always do. He’s holding this box of strawberries and the cop comes up and says, you know, kind of the same thing. You can’t be blocking the public sidewalk. And he says, I’m not going to block the sidewalk. And he said, well, you’re not going to go over to that sidewalk with those strawberries. So I, I have videos of this guy looking so confused going, I can’t hold strawberries in public? And the cop says something like, you can hold the strawberries wherever you want except on the sidewalk because then you’d be blocking the sidewalk. And he said, I’m not gonna block the sidewalk. And the cop’s like, look, we gotta talk. Do you want to set those strawberries down? And he says, no, I’m gonna go set them down over there where people can actually get them, and walks to the grass easement next to the sidewalk to set the strawberries down. And I have video, there are like four different cops who are now standing on the sidewalk themselves, just watching him move this box of strawberries over to the sidewalk. And then he walks back to the car to get more things.

Courtney: The cops then seem increasingly more adamant that we cannot be on this public sidewalk. We’ve gotta go somewhere else. And so I actually go talk to one, to several of our guests who are there waiting for food, who are asking what’s happening, why are all these cops here? And I start asking them, does anyone know where we can set up our food for today since they seem like they aren’t going to let us serve here? And we’re talking, we’re sharing ideas.

Courtney: And then I turn around and my friend Wolfgang is getting put in handcuffs. And I went, oh, that escalated. What happened? So I walk over there with my camera on, and Michael, our aforementioned strawberry terrorist, is talking to a second cop saying, well, I don’t understand what’s happening. We aren’t blocking the sidewalk. I don’t know why you keep saying that. And the guy who’s putting Wolfgang in handcuffs just points at Michael and says, and that one. And then Michael looks at the cop who’s next to him. I walk up, by the way. I got permission to stand on the parking lot, actually, ’Cause I walk up with my phone and the cop looks me right in the eyes, looks my camera right in the eyes, looks down at the, uh, parking lot and says, you can stand there. I said, great, I will. And as soon as this guy says, yeah, and that one too, Micah looks at the cop next to him and says, do you want me to get off the parking lot? I will gladly get off the parking lot. I was never asked to get off the parking lot, but I will gladly get off the parking lot. And instead of answering him, they put him in handcuffs. We’ve got all of this on video.

Courtney: So as these two are getting arrested, because mind you, not only did they send 10 or 12 cops out here, they brought the wagon, a whole police van. So I am sure they were prepared to arrest each and every one of us. It was probably around this point in time that you got a phone call from me real quick.

Royce: Yeah, a, uh, heads up just in case kind of a thing.

Courtney: I’m like, hey Royce, by the way, they’re arresting us. I’m not arrested yet, but two of us are. So if I don’t come home tonight— So as these two are getting escorted off to the policeman, an officer looks directly at me, points at me. I’m several feet from him, by the way. I do have my phone out and several people by this point have their phones and cameras out because this entire situation is absurd. He looks at me, points at me, gestures at everyone else and says, this is your warning. If you don’t get out of here, you’re going to be put in handcuffs too. Does everyone understand me? And at this point I say, can we stand on the public sidewalk? And he said, if you stand on the sidewalk, that means you’re blocking the sidewalk and you can’t do that either. And so I said, so for clarification, you are telling us that we cannot stand on the public sidewalk or else you’re threatening to arrest us? And he said, well, I didn’t say that. But then a second officer, the first one who arrested Wolfgang, walks over and looks me right in my face, right in my camera, and he says the same thing. He says, you can’t go on the sidewalk. If you go on the sidewalk, you’re blocking the sidewalk and you can’t do that either. What is going on? You’re all telling us we can’t be on the sidewalk.

Courtney: So I do find it very interesting that I was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. And even though I was threatened to be arrested, uh, I was not. I think they probably saw: woman walking with the cane trying to feed hungry members of the community, and they’re like, well, that would be an extra bad look if we arrested the disabled one right now with all of these cameras out here. That’s my sneaking suspicion, especially because I got explicit permission from one of them to stand on the parking lot, which was apparently their main issue this whole time.

Courtney: Now mind you, again, if they just said, we don’t even want you using the back of this parking lot to unload food and then move your car somewhere else, we just don’t enter the parking lot at all, we would have done that. Easily, we would have done that. And that is why I decided not to leave yet. What I did, even though they had already threatened to arrest me, told me to leave. I got from some of the folks we serve a very temporary makeshift location we could move to around the block, started giving out the address to people, and I said, move the food over there, start handing it out. I’m gonna stay here because we’ve still got work to do. So I kept talking to them and they still did not arrest me. But they did threaten multiple times.

Courtney: Now, since two of our guys had gotten arrested, now their vehicles are here. In their vehicles are important materials for our serving. One of the cars had our tables and our silverware and boxes. And this is just how cruel this entire situation was. In Wolfgang’s car, we had something we don’t have every single week. We actually had baby formula in his car that week. We were so excited to be able to give this out. There was a woman there watching this whole thing with her 8-month-old baby. Wolfgang has formula in this car that we are trying to give out for free, but by this point, everyone who is trying to get materials out of these cars. We actually had the keys to Michael’s car. He asked us to move his car and we were planning to do it, but all the cops started surrounding their two vehicles and were telling us, if you so much as touch that car, I’m going to arrest you too. Literally threatening to arrest us for feeding babies.

Courtney: So I know full well that we have a right to access public spaces. And I know full well that it has been fought and proven in federal court that Food Not Bombs as an organization has a First Amendment right to serve food, that this counts as free expression in our protest against war. So I really want to get to the bottom of this. I want to get the top cops to talk more, preferably on my phone video, and I want to get these cars back. I want to get this baby formula. I want to get the vehicles. I want to get the tables.

Courtney: At first they were telling us, no, we are going to inventory these cars and then we’re going to ticket them and then we’re going to tow and impound them. And I thought, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I am getting these cars back. So I talked to a couple of different cops who at first were saying, no, you can’t get this car.

Courtney: So, mind you, this is the first time in my life that the cops were— they weren’t treating me well, but I wasn’t arrested yet, so they were treating me better than other people in my vicinity. And I know I’ve shared a couple of these stories in past episodes on the podcast, but when I was a teenager, when I was younger, the run-ins I had with cops— I have been illegally pulled over, I have had my car illegally searched, I had a cop accuse me of being a prostitute while I was still a minor. I had a cop call me a prairie n-word. I have not historically had a good time with the cops.

Courtney: So here I’m saying, well, as long as they’re treating me better than the other people around here, I’m going to use this to my advantage as much as I can. So I started using their words against them. I said, you want us to get off the parking lot. Let me move these cars off the parking lot. I will do that. You want us to serve our food somewhere else? We can’t do that if we don’t have these tables. So just like you asked me to, I’m going to do this, but I need X, Y, and Z first. And of course they kept saying policy, policy, policy, and we, we can’t separate this property. This property is in our possession now because we arrested them and They said, we can’t give you permission to do that, and I said, can the owners of the vehicles? Can they give verbal consent for us to take the cars? Can they sign a paper releasing the cars to us? Eventually they did finally give me permission to move the cars, thank goodness.

Courtney: But while we were waiting for this answer and negotiating for this, I tried asking a few more questions, and they specifically brought up— ’cause at this point, we don’t know why they’re here. We never saw a trespass order. We were never asked to leave the parking lot by a business owner. We thought what we were doing was sufficing based on our conversation with the Titan security guards a few weeks ago, and no one said anything different to us since then. But they did throughout this conversation let slip that, yeah, well, these businesses over here said you’ve been causing some trouble. They said you’ve been causing a mess. And the fact that they were saying things like, yeah, apparently there was a big mess here, I was like, oh, it’s the hot dog picture from Monday morning a few weeks ago. That’s clearly what you’re talking about here. Which we, you know, also explained. We have video of having this conversation. This was not our food, this was not our situation. And what it ultimately boiled down to, I have these cops saying, well, you know, the businesses are gonna take precedent because they’re a real stakeholder in the neighborhood. They said, maybe if you owned or rented property on this street, then maybe you too would be a stakeholder of this neighborhood.

Courtney: So I think a majority of you who regularly listen to us are probably on the same page about this, but if you’ve never heard this before, I want to give everybody a— an emphatic reminder that the cops do not protect people. They protect property. They are here to protect capital. They might put a link on their website saying If you’re experiencing food insecurity, you can go to Food Not Bombs on this day on this street. But as soon as a business in relative proximity to that sidewalk says we don’t want them here, they will show up and arrest you and disperse you and harass you and will not even allow you access to public property.

Courtney: And for how absurd this entire situation is, by the way, The first arrest that was made, Wolfgang, is one of our guys who every single week would go into the Family Dollar and buy a drink. Every single Sunday. Has receipts. And to make matters even more disgusting than they already were, I stayed on that parking lot for a good long while waiting to get those cars. I even asked them too, I said, okay, well, I’m gonna move Michael’s car now. That means my car is gonna stay here on the parking lot. Is that okay, officer? And they’re like, yeah. Yeah, of course. I was like, alright, I’ll come back and get that later tonight then. So I’m driving Michael’s car away, leaving my own, after they fully said that’s fine. So it really wasn’t about the parking lot the entire time. If it was, we could have moved off of it and continued to serve our food on the sidewalk. But they came prepared to shut us down.

Courtney: So all the jails were full, and they didn’t know where to take them. ‘Cause all of the nearest jails are completely booked up. So it took them a while to even have an opening to have a place to send them. And if you needed any more proof that the cops are merely here to protect property and not people, there were a couple of particularly interesting posts on our Kansas City subreddit In the same 24-hour period that this took place.

Courtney: This one says, just had a 17-year-old girl flag me down. She said she’s getting physically abused. I thought I was about to get set up, but I let her use my phone to call KCPD and they hung up four times after she hit 1. So I took her myself to the police station on 75th and Prospect. All four windows had staff. Nobody wanted to help. There’s police officers walking around the station and they told her it’s going to be up to four hours for a cop to respond because they are understaffed. I asked about the officers in the back, and the front desk staff told me they’re working on a case. She’s 17. I see why women in domestic violence situations can’t find help. This girl has bruises on her face and it’s cold outside. She has no coat. Her boyfriend destroyed her phone. KCPD gets sworn-in officers almost every month and you’re telling me they’re understaffed? Maybe it’s because they sent them all out to arrest us for feeding the community on a public sidewalk. They sure didn’t protect that girl.

Courtney: Same 24-hour period, a post entitled, Are the police always this useless? My house was hit by gunfire on New Year’s. I saw where the bullets were fired from. Across-the-street neighbor, a bullet almost hit my wife. The angle of the bullet holes point directly to the house that the bullets came from. I called the police, they showed up. Took a few photos, took a statement, then left. Nothing else. I reached out to them today and they have not even assigned a detective to the case. Nobody has come out to ask further questions. No investigation is currently being done. I called my councilman’s legislative aide. She said she’ll pass on the information, but KCPD isn’t run by the city. Am I just completely fucked here? Is there anything I can do? KCPD is sure not helping those people who are almost getting shot in their house.

Courtney: Both of those Reddit posts within the same 24-hour period as our arrest incident. Incredibly indicative of the situation as a whole. And so throughout the duration of me not leaving the scene after being threatened with arrest on multiple occasions, I did end up getting into some more conversations with additional officers, and more and more things just started coming out which are completely irrelevant to the work that we do there every Sunday. They would say things like, oh, we’re coming up to this area of town all the time responding to issues with businesses like people destroying their toilets or people doing drugs in their parking lot.

Courtney: And really all it was was anti-homeless rhetoric that is irrelevant to the work we do. Yes, a lot of the people who come and eat with us are unhoused, but not everybody. I don’t think that 8-month-old baby there was destroying any toilets at the business. We serve many children, we serve many families. In fact, we serve a lot of the employees at those three businesses in that strip mall. We have had employees that work on that street come out before their shift, after their shift, on their breaks to eat food with us. This is not at all uncommon.

Courtney: And it was just so interesting to have so many officers there because each one that you talked to had a completely different tactic. Some were absolutely just trying to intimidate, resorting to threats. Others were trying to argue on behalf of the businesses that we’re actually causing problems for the business. Somehow, even though where we serve is nowhere near the entrance to their businesses, we’re not impeding anyone from patronizing these businesses. As I said, if anything, we’re giving them more business on that day from our several volunteers who do shop in that strip mall, or at least did before this incident.

Courtney: But there was one cop who pointed at me and then one or two others who still had their cameras out before they shuffled on to the second location, who basically told us he wasn’t going to talk to anybody who was recording. I was several feet away from him and he pointed at me and said, all of you with your cameras out here getting in my face trying to intimidate me. As I’m here with my walking cane. And literally, this was after I was saying, are you telling me we cannot stand on the public sidewalk? From several feet away from him, that is what I’m asking. And he’s like, I’m not gonna talk to anyone out here who’s getting in my face trying to intimidate me! Which is just so hilarious when I also have video of another officer whose face I was actually in. Not in an intimidating fashion, I was just literally right next to him. And he was like, you can stand there. Very calmly.

Courtney: But to even just further prove how nonsensical the argument about blocking the sidewalk is, for that day only, we did move around the corner to a secondary makeshift location where we once again set up on a public sidewalk. This one was in a residential area. It wasn’t next to a bus stop. It wasn’t on a major street, so it was a much smaller sidewalk. After I finally got my friends’ cars back and drove them off the lot, leaving my own with their permission, and made it to the second location to see how everything was going, we had a cop car from that location follow us and drive down the street to see what we were doing. Never stopped and said another thing. Just drove by. We were actually impeding the flow of traffic on that sidewalk, but they didn’t seem to care because it wasn’t within view of a business. And that’s all they want. They just want the businesses to be able to pretend like poverty and homelessness doesn’t exist in the neighborhood that they operate.

Courtney: The irony of all of this was, one of our regulars, really nice lady who was there witnessing this whole thing, used to be a manager of one of the businesses formerly in that strip mall. And she knows a lot of us who do this every week, and she said that while she worked there, she knew how wonderful we were and how we would introduce ourselves to the businesses and how we would always clean up after ourselves. So that’s another thing the cops kept saying to me, they’re like, well, there’s always a lot of trash on this street. Yeah, you also took away all the trash cans.

Courtney: And so we did serve our food that day after a slight, uh, interruption, and then I drove my friend’s car down to the police station, which was nowhere near where they were arrested because, as they said, all the jails were full, uh, to go help bail them out. This was the first Sunday in January when all of this happened, by the way. We came back the next week. We have continued to serve our meal every single Sunday on a public sidewalk next to this strip mall. We moved ever so slightly. We’re still at the same intersection. We’re just in a different segment of a sidewalk, so we’re not right next to the bus stop anymore. Nobody’s ever said a word to us. We have had some of the Titan security guards the following week stop in the parking lot and kind of watch us from a distance, but no one came to talk to us. Nothing.

Courtney: And to make matters even more interesting, KCPD’s social media comments were lying, outright lying about the situation that occurred, because a couple of articles started coming out about what happened. The first one was very, well, Food Not Bombs says, well, KCPD says. So it was a neutral, middle-of-the-road article that got a couple of little details wrong, but wasn’t very deep. Some folks were still upset about it. And then we had a, uh, an article that came out on The Pitch, which I will link in the show notes if any of you want to read it. It was the only article that came out that was 100% friendly toward us. And oddly enough, wouldn’t you know, that is the only reporter who actually came to see for herself what we do at the time we serve within the weeks following this incident, to see with her own eyes.

Courtney: And I was speaking to her. I was showing her around when she came out and she kept saying, wow, you’re not blocking the sidewalk at all. Everyone can easily pass through here. Yes, that’s what we’re saying. Here’s our own pop-up trash cans that we brought. Today’s a day we happen to have extra volunteers, so they’re out here with trash grabbers going up and down the street. This is what we do when we have extra volunteers above and beyond what we actually need to serve the meal, which doesn’t happen every time. Sometimes we’re very shorthanded. As the ragtag group we are, we work with not only the ingredients we have that week, but also the number of hands we have that week.

Courtney: So naturally, some folks around Kansas City were saying, hey, what gives, KCPD? Why designate all these resources to arresting these lovely folks? So I don’t know who’s running their social media, but they started posting. I’ve got a screenshot here. The first one says, the arrests took place on January 1st, 2026. No, they did not. The two individuals taken into custody in the video have been trespassed multiple times and were asked to leave by surrounding businesses and refused to do so, hence why we responded. Absolute lies. We had never spoken to a single Kansas City police officer before they showed up with a wagon ready for us to arrive. Closest thing? Were those security guards a few weeks before who told us they love what we’re doing, they appreciate what we’re doing, keep up the good work, just, you know, once you unload, make sure you move your car off of the parking lot. All right, not a problem, happy to do that. If that’s considered being trespassed multiple times and asked to leave by surrounding business owners. So we pointed out to them, since they’re spreading this on social media. You didn’t even get the date right.

Royce: It was the 4th, right?

Courtney: It was January 4th, because we weren’t even serving food anywhere on January 1st. What do you mean this happened on January 1st? So they did issue a correction, but their correction still lied. They said an initial report was taken on January 1st in regard to community complaints. KCPD was then called again to respond on January 4th when business owners asked the group to move off their property. The group did not comply, so arrests were made. I was the first one on that site. They were dispersing everybody on that sidewalk before anyone else showed up. I was the first one to talk to the semicircle of police facing off against me. I’ve never spoken to a business owner there. They were not present that day. They were there waiting for us. So, really interesting.

Courtney: Of course we have screenshots of that for our case because the charges are ongoing, by the way. I heard a rumor that in the US we have a right to a fair and speedy trial, but I haven’t seen evidence of this yet because KCPD has still not given discovery to our lawyers. So we don’t have dashcam footage, we do not have bodycam footage, our lawyers do not have what they need to fight the case. And yet we have had multiple arraignments set. First one was back in— gosh, was it February or March? I don’t even know without looking at my calendar, but had to show up and say, well, KCPD hasn’t given us what we need, so they rescheduled it and they just keep kicking the can down the road. Their latest excuse has been, well, you know, Kansas City’s having the World Cup, so we’re not going to let any KCPD officers go to be witnesses at any trials while the World Cup is in town. So gotta reschedule again, gotta reschedule again. So now, assuming we even get everything we need to try to fight this. It’s not till nearing the end of August that they’re going to once again try to schedule another trial date. I’m sure that footage should be more than enough to fight this case. I really hope so, at least.

Courtney: As I said, we have footage proving our second guy arrested was asking them, do you want me to leave the parking lot? And their response was to arrest him. So he was not formerly— formally trespassed by any means. We didn’t know it was going to escalate to the point of arrest at first, so we don’t have our own footage of the conversation leading up to the first arrest, but Their whole thing was you can’t park in the parking lot if you’re not gonna patronize this business, and the first guy you arrested is the one who patronizes that business the most. The most out of any of us. So they’re clearly just jerking us around. Since they haven’t even been back, it’s very clearly an intimidation tactic on their part.

Courtney: But for how frustrating this has all been, We are not the only chapter of Food Not Bombs who has had issues like this. And the common theme seems to be, you know, the stakeholders, their favorite word, just make up lies about us and report it as fact. In fact, we had one extremely unfriendly news article published. Which I thought was kind of funny because they put a photo of the three businesses, the Buy the Pound, Family Dollar, and Fruitopia. We were on our best behavior when we announced everything that happened. We did not publicly tell anybody what businesses called the cops on us. We certainly could have, and you know there would have been some really juicy review bombs if we had, but we are Food Not Bombs and review bombs count. We didn’t really want that if we could avoid it. So the article trying to incriminate us the most outed these businesses, which was kind of funny.

Courtney: But this article says, according to city officials and neighborhood stakeholders, Food Not Bombs does not obtain permits, does not carry insurance, or secure permission from property owners before setting up food distribution sites. We don’t need permission from property owners to use public space. But then they go on to say concerns have also been raised over food handling and storage practices, which— never. Not a single person has ever said that. They bring up health officials who don’t exist. We had never spoken to anybody in a health department. Nothing. Never been an issue.

Courtney: And they go on to cite the Community Improvement District. That is who actually hires the Titan security guards. I have that on footage with the Titan security guard saying, we CID guys love what you do. That was the verbiage they used. We CID guys love what you do. It says, well, the CID and nearby property owners have regularly been tasked with cleaning up food containers, clothing donations, and other debris following these events. Oh yeah? Then why do they love us so much? Why do they love us if we’re such a burden for them? Bring the trash cans back.

Courtney: The closest thing to true that this article says is video posted by the group shows one organizer repeatedly asking whether moving to the public sidewalk would resolve the issue, while officers stated that blocking the sidewalk was also not permitted. Close to true. That was, that was me, by the way. Hi, I’m that organizer. It wasn’t moving to the sidewalk. We’ve always served on the sidewalk. Some of these reports were like, oh, they’re serving in the parking lot that’s owned by these businesses. No, we aren’t. We were using it to unload our cars and then we were gonna move them like we’d arranged with the CID guys who love us. It says KCPD has previously responded to complaints at this site. Never happened. A Buy the Pound thrift manager said Food Not Bombs setup interfered with customer access and business operations. Nowhere near their business storefront. Way at the far end of their parking lot for a few minutes and then on the public sidewalk. Doesn’t impede anybody.

Courtney: And at some Northeast Chamber of Commerce event on the Thursday, a Thursday following our arrest, she apparently stated that Food Not Bomb organizers, quote, told her employees and customers that they were in the way of where they planned to distribute food. None of us have any idea where that came from, ’cause that day we didn’t even talk to any of them. They weren’t even there. And we are still, as of the date of recording, listed on KCPD’s website while they’re still pressing charges and still refusing to release the body cam footage. So that’s neat.

Courtney: So remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about the US new counterterrorism strategy? That labels all anarchist groups, among other things, they had radically pro-transgender in there, as terrorist groups. Um, they’re talking about groups like Food Not Bombs. These are the anarchist organizations they’re saying are the terrorists. And even though that was a new strategy released in writing, the concept is not new. In fact, in the ’80s, The United States government started to claim that Food Not Bombs is, quote, America’s most hardcore terrorist group, when in reality, all we are doing is reducing food waste, feeding the hungry, protesting war.

Courtney: So after our arrests had been made, after that counterterrorism strategy came out, I suspected things were going to get a lot worse before they get better. And lo and behold, it has come to our attention that there are other US-based chapters of Food Not Bombs who are dealing with similar issues. One of those chapters is Tulsa Food Not Bombs, Oklahoma, a neighboring state of ours. In fact, as of the day this episode is being released, it is Tulsa Food Not Bombs’ Global Day of protest. And I’m gonna put some resources in the show notes on our website and the description box on YouTube if you want to join. There are protest email templates to the mayor, city attorney, advisor on homelessness, amongst others, if you want to reach out and encourage city officials to drop the charges, because much like us, Tulsa Food Not Bombs got raided by entirely too many police officers and a wagon. They actually had four members who got arrested and six additional who received citations that day. Tulsa’s arrest took place on May 6th. They’re scheduled to go to court on July 22nd.

Courtney: We’ll see if they have been more successful than we have at obtaining discovery and actually securing a trial date. But we also heard from the folks at Tulsa Food Not Bombs that just last week when they got to the site where they share their meal, there were several cops in SUVs on site just there to be a menacing presence, just to intimidate. They still shared their food. They were not stopped from sharing their food. And they also brought a ton of water, which just about anyone in the States right now knows exactly how dreadful the heat has been this year. And it’s a very good thing that they did bring a ton of water, ’cause they also said, quote, we learned from the community tonight that many of the very few water fountains/spouts have recently been turned off. Water access has always been bad for the unhoused in Tulsa, but this year is a new low. Dehydration kills. Temperatures are exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, often coinciding with extreme humidity.

Courtney: Happening elsewhere in our country, Roswell, New Mexico is being completely blocked by the city of Roswell from sharing their biweekly food distributions. These city officials citing that they need a permit and insurance if they’re going to share food in public, which again, it has been federally proven in court that we have the First Amendment right to do this. So Roswell Food Not Bombs is actually suing the city for infringing on their First Amendment rights right now. So of course they need the resources. All the resources they can get to help fight that battle. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from working with Food Not Bombs is that we are an incredibly resilient bunch. And even though Roswell is hopefully extremely temporarily barred from feeding the community, they’re still committed to serving the community in whatever ways they can. They have in fact opened a cooling center which is extremely necessary with the temperatures they have been seeing lately.

Courtney: I know times are scary right now for everyone, and we frequently hear from listeners asking what the heck they can do, where to even start. If you are new to the concept of mutual aid, I’m going to leave you off today with a call to action. We’ll be back next week with a featured marketplace vendor, but for this week, I am going to put in all the usual places links where you can help out these specific chapters of Food Not Bombs. If you have a little bit of money you can kick, I will show you how you can contribute to Roswell Food Not Bombs. How you can contribute to Tulsa Food Not Bombs, and how you can contribute to my chapter, Kansas City Food Not Bombs.

Courtney: Because we also have talked on this podcast about the crisis in Gaza and different ways to help out there, I’m also going to slip in a link for how to send direct aid to the Gaza chapter of Food Not Bombs, because as I said, Food Not Bombs is a global movement in protest of war, And there are organizers on the ground from within the community in Gaza who are attempting to serve their communities in this way. And they, of course, can always use more support.

Courtney: But finally, and most importantly, I’m going to pop in the link so that you can find if your local area already has a chapter of Food Not Bombs. And if it does, I highly encourage you to show up, see what your chapter is like, see what sort of assistance they could use, see if they’re dealing with any of the similar issues we have, or if they’re able to serve undisturbed. There are so many ways that you can help out in these different chapters, whether it’s sourcing and collecting food, cooking, serving, even cleaning the dishes up after. And there will also be resources on how to start your own chapter of Food Not Bombs if your area does not currently have one.

Courtney: But even if it is not Food Not Bombs, I cannot impress upon all of you exactly how important it is to learn more about mutual aid and what mutual aid organizations exist in your area and how you can help them out. If you get in with the right organizers who have been doing work like this for a while, you’ll often find that many of these groups know each other and help one another out. So even if you land in a group that isn’t quite your vibe, they’ll probably know somewhere else you can lend your specific talents and interests to.

Courtney: Just last month alone, through Food Not Bombs, we were able to work with other organizations. We served food at our People’s Pride, which was the grassroots, non-corporate, no-cops Pride. And it was a wonderful, joyful time. While I was there, I simultaneously had the opportunity to talk to dozens of other aces who just happened by our table. I was giving out so much ace merch that I have just accumulated throughout the year. In addition to our, gasp, anarchist zines, which I now hear the keeping and transporting of may be punishable by 30 years in federal prison based on terrorism charges, but that is an entirely different story we’ll have to talk about another day.

Courtney: But at the end of the day, it’s feeding the community, and my local chapter is itself very queer, very queer-affirming. We were able to work alongside People’s Pride. We were even invited to help cater the local Juneteenth cookout put on by the Kansas City Defender and Decarcerate KC. Another wonderful, joyful day where we got to just show up and feed the community and have great conversations. If we ever have surplus groceries from our distribution, we often pass them along to the free fridges and free pantries that are put up by organizations like Kansas City Mutual Aid. We have a big overlap in organizers between Food Not Bombs and the Kansas City Really, Really Free Market.

Courtney: And because I’m not in your community, I cannot tell you what your community needs or what your community is doing, but I can tell you there is someone there already doing the work. And if you can find a way to connect with them, it will open up a lot of doors that can be incredibly fulfilling, And I keep using the word joyful, but it really is. Despite the stress of that day, I get to show up every single week with personal friends to work together to make our community just a little bit better. Because food is a right, not a privilege.