Riverside Police Raid Homeless Camp : 7 Members of the ‘River-Bottom People’ Arrested in Sweep

Riverside police conducted a sweep of a river-bottom camp at dawn Friday and arrested seven members of a self-governing group of homeless people that had existed for several months without the knowledge of local government officials, authorities said.

Their secretive life style ended Sept. 22 when several members of the group of 17 men and women who referred to themselves as the “river-bottom people” appeared at a Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting to plead for more permanent housing.

Many lodgers at the camp, fearing just such a police action, vacated the Santa Ana River area last week as debate increased among local government officials over what should be done with them.

In explaining the sweep, Al Mendoza, spokesman for the Riverside Police Department, said that criminal activity had increased in recent months in the area near the camp, located on about 12 acres of public utilities land a mile from downtown Riverside.

“There has been a significant amount of crime around there--burglaries, thefts and prowling.” Mendoza said. However, it had not been established that the river-bottom dwellers were responsible for the crimes, he said.

But Mendoza said the river-bottom people were trespassing on public utilities land.

“They built fires there illegally . . . had poor sanitation facilities and dogs that challenged other people going into the area,” he said. “We couldn’t let them stay there.”

The sweep was conducted by eight officers at 6:30 a.m., Mendoza said. All but one of those arrested had been released by Friday afternoon on their promise to appear on mostly misdemeanor charges of trespassing and lodging, he said.

“The sweep was an unkind thing to do,” said Arlene Hayes, spokeswoman for the Homeless Coalition of Riverside. “They were not bothering anybody.”

Nonetheless, “additional sweeps may be conducted if people move back down there,” Mendoza said.