Beat the distressed

This thuggish state Rep. in Hawaii is a real piece of work. He decided to show the homeless in his district who's boss, with a fucking sledgehammer. He patrols his district and destroying the meager belongings of the downtrodden.

Brower has waged this campaign for two weeks, estimating that he’s smashed about 30 shopping carts in the process.

You have to watch the video at the link to truly appreciate how creepy he is but it gets worse. Tom Brower is considering physical confrontation next.

...I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets," he said.

"I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them. I also create a situation where those carts can't be pushed around the city. I think it's a good thing," he said.

"I don't want to be threatening to anybody," Brower said. "I think it's threatening to steal things and then walk around with them like it's their own."

Brower said he has yet to take a cart from a homeless person who's pushing it, but that may be coming. He supports other efforts to remove abandoned property. The sledgehammer approach is his way of pitching in.

If you watched the video, he doesn't actually remove them. He smashes them with the sledge and leaves them piled up for the city to remove. Which is about the meanest, most cost ineffective way to deal with abandoned carts. For one thing the carts he smashed all looked perfectly operable. He could just return them to the stores. Those carts are expensive. I'm sure they would be happy to get them back. Furthermore, stealing shopping carts has been long been the practice among the homeless. By destroying the one they already have, it just encourages them to steal a fresh one.

And how does this help the homeless get off the street anyway? Maybe he could spent some energy on finding solutions to homelessness instead of working out his frustrations with a sledgehammer. Austin, TX has a homeless problem too. They're not vandalizing property there. They're building a self-sustained Community Village for the homeless outside of downtown.