Who Fights For Homeless People’s Rights?

Tommy Longaberger hates the homeless. At least his actions speak as much. Read the latest in the ongoing harassment of Homeless Advocate Steve Reiter by downtown resident and lawyer Tommy Longaberger.

Tommy is a lawyer, but not just any lawyer, he’s built a practice of defending people who drive while drunk. Yeah, a real class act. But even at that he doesn’t do so well. At the Nashville.citysearch.com web site, there is only one review of Tommy’s practice, and it’s not a good one.

Irishheir wrote of Tommy Longaberger:
Mr. Longaberger was hired by me to represent me in a DUI case. From the start he would not return calls or e-mails to my family or myself. When we did go to court he did not explain what could happen between the plea bargains and pointed me in the wrong direction on which to take and I spent much longer in jail than I was led to believe. When my case got messed up do to his and other peoples failers involved in the case, he acted like “my job is done, sorry” I feel all he cared about was getting paid and then what happens happens. He was late to every court appearance to the point a couple times I thought I was on my own. While I was in jail I spoke to other people who had been clients and they all said the same thing “He is a bad attorney” and would not recommend him to anyone.

But, I digress.

It seems that Tommy Longaberger is a chief complainer about all things homeless in downtown Nashville. He lives on the third floor of the Cumberland, a luxury condominium across the street from the Church Street Park, and so has a good view of the park and the activities there. And we know this because Tommy has mentioned on several occasions the inordinate amount of video he has shot from his living room, of the homeless in the park. It seems that any time he even thinks he’s seen something illegal happen by a homeless peron in the park, he makes a quick phone call to the police. He also takes photographs of the homeless - of course without any one’s permission. Sure, “legally” he doesn’t have to ask permission to photograph someone in a public place. But doesn’t that sound just a bit unethical to you, dear reader? It does to me. And that starts to bring us to the gist of this post. Tommy once went down to the park to take pictures of the homeless - standing behind large bushes and trees, while a church group was feeding the homeless - and someone caught him.

Who caught him was Steve Reiter - a homeless advocate. This is how the story was related to me: When Steve saw Tommy taking photos he approached Tommy to find out what he was up to. Tommy saw that his cover was blown and started to walk away. When Steve caught up with Tommy, he put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder to get his attention.

So, Tommy filed a charge of assault against Steve for this act. This was back a couple years ago. And Tommy, using all of his influence and connections as a lawyer, continues to harass Steve with endless litigation. The latest thing appeared in this morning’s Nashville City Paper. Tommy has charged Steve with stalking.

It’s interesting that Tommy Longaberger even brags about using his connections in the Davidson County Court House to gain favorable outcomes for his clients. “Most of what I do still involves knowing or finding the information or person that can help my case and my client get a better disposition in their case.” Would he use his connections against Steve?

Richard McGhee (sp) was Steve’s first lawyer. When the subpoena for the court date was sent to McGhee, McGhee failed to notify Steve of the date. But, heck, the subpoena sent to McGhee didn’t have a date on it. Steve got busted for Failure to Appear and did 35 days in jail.

Tommy really doesn’t seem to have a case against Steve with this assault charge (or the stalking one). I mean, Tommy really wasn’t injured in anyway - except perhaps a bruised ego. But that didn’t stop Tommy from pursuing the case. I would have thought the case would have been dropped once it got to the grand Jury. yet an indictment was handed down. I was told that some high level official on the jury happened to be a former business associate of Tommy’s. I guess that’s legal. Still, all this time, Steve had been allowed to be out of jail on his own recognizance.

The court date from the initial assault charge of a few years ago had finally been set for January 18th. On the 17th, Tommy charged Steve with stalking. Steve, in all the advocacy work he does for the homeless, spends a lot of time in and around the court house, and he’s been doing it for a long time - the same court house where Tommy does his lawyering. So, just the day before the court date for the assault charge, Tommy comes up with this new charge? Seems awfully suspicious to me. Because Steve is currently homeless he is automatically considered a flight risk and so for the stalking charge he is now not allowed out of jail. And it may be that Steve will have to deal with the stalking charge, before facing the assault charge.

I have known Steve for a couple years now, and I have never seen him exhibit any kind of behavior which would could be interpreted as stalking, let alone assault. Steve is passionate about justice for all people, and has always pursued that through peaceful means. It is a shame what has been allowed to happen here.

Lets never forget that most people are kind, goodhearted people, who always want what’s best for everyone, including the homeless. But we must recognize that there are a good number of people who are prejudiced against homeless people. And their actions against the homeless reflect as much.

Some people are inclined to commit grave acts of violence against the homeless, such as what happened to Tara Cole, but sometimes they find other legal, yet still seemingly criminal means of harassing them.