Monday, June 15, 2015

 

Cui bono? Who benefits from Honolulu’s persecution of the homeless?


by Larry Geller

Cui bono, "to whose benefit?", is still used as a legal term. It is used by police and by mystery writers to find who has a motive for a crime.

In crime novels the information is often laid out for the reader—in theory, it ought to be possible to solve the crime, if the reader were only as clever as the fictional detective.

The publication today of the University of Hawaii study defined what can easily be interpreted as crimes against Honolulu’s most vulnerable citizens, including the illegal confiscation of ID, medicine, children’s items and other personal property, and failure to store and return other property as required by the city’s own ordinances.

So the city has stolen from the poor. That’s a crime in my book.

In fact, we know the direct culprits, the city workers and police officers conducting the sweeps in an illegal manner. They are not, however, bad apples. And therein lies the mystery. Who sent them to do the dirty work? And so we ask cui bono, who benefits, from allowing the predation on the poor to continue?

It was not the job of the study to go deeper than the evidence and form conclusions that perhaps should have been obvious to the rest of us earlier. If you read it, you’re now familiar with the crime scene and its victims.

It’s easy to speculate on who benefits. So here is my short list of suspects:

Let there be no question that this is a murder mystery: It was not within the scope of the study to uncover the bodies—that is, count the many people who have died as a result of living on the streets without adequate shelter or medical care. Lifespans are shorter for street dwellers.

It may be unpalatable, but public policy really does result in avoidable deaths.

So when will we see the last chapter? This is an interactive novel. We won’t get to see the ending unless we participate in ending the crime.

See also:



Comments:

Like Murder on the Orient Express, they all did it.
 

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