Panhandler cited 250 times in war of wills with Ohio police
Cleveland police and a persistent panhandler have been engaged in a war of wills for years at a homely west side intersection, a conflict that appears to subside only when the man is in jail.
Records reviewed by The Associated Press show 60-year-old David Spaulding has been cited more than 250 times for panhandling since 2013, with nearly all the citations written by police at an intersection in a neighbourhood best known for where Ariel Castro once held three young women captive for years.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the city in federal court this week on behalf of a homeless man, John Mancini, and an advocacy group that claims the city’s panhandling laws are unconstitutional because they make pleas of poverty a crime. Cleveland police issued more than 5,800 panhandling citations between 2007 and August of 2015, according to the lawsuit.
An examination of more than 100 court cases for Spaulding show that since January 2015, he’s been cited twice on 10 different days and four times on Oct. 3, 2016, at the intersection. About 2 miles from downtown Cleveland, the spot is flanked by an off-brand gas station and appears to be prime real estate for cadging money from motorists stopped at a busy traffic light.