At some point, the San Francisco Chronicle, the most influential of the local papers, ran an Op-Ed piece lambasting mayor Willie Brown for allowing the "homeless problem" in Golden Gate Park to get so far out of hand. It was a disgrace, the article ranted, that "the crown jewel of the city's park system should become overrun with criminals and druggies." Soon the other papers were following suit, and before long it was headline news every day in every paper. Headlines ran: "Illegal Campers Descend on Golden Gate Park", __________, ______________. And then, in a blatant attempt by the media to influence municipal policy, the headlines became more editorial: "Calls to Willie Come In Loud And Clear" "Call to Green Up Golden Gate Park", _____________, ____________. The power of the pen was proven again, as soon thereafter the cop raids began. In the early stages, they would gently wake anyone they would find sleeping in the park and give them a warning. Then they started issuing tickets, but their hearts weren't in it and they would go so far as to explain that the ticket was pretty much meaningless. Each morning the park would be littered with crumpled tickets. And the cops only patrolled the open areas of the park, leaving the out-of-sight encampments, such as the one Glenn called home, alone.

But soon enough the camera crews and smoothie reporters were on the scene for what they hoped would be a more sensational raid. So these little encampments of gutterpunks, camped among their overflowing shopping carts and damp sleeping bags, were descended upon by halogen-spotlight wielding reporters and the hapless cops who were left no choice but to do their job extra well. Which is when they found a needle exchange stash of over 700 hypodermic needles . . .

It didn't matter that those needles were clearly from a needle exchange program, which was obvious by the way the "spikes" were broken off and stored in the "barrel". The press ran the story: "Druggies and Criminals Infest Park", ___________. Soon yellow journalism accounts of kids finding syringes in sandboxes were in every paper, and the media increased the pressure.

The word in the park until this point was that this would all blow over. People who'd been living there for twenty years dismissed this as nothing more than another periodical sweep of the park, which would "blow over like it always does" in two or three weeks. Even the cops were saying this. One encampment in the bushes outside where The Kitchen regularly parked -- about six to eight people on a bed of tarps and blankets -- were even approached by two of the mayor's assistants who "extended a personal invitation to leave the park." Both were fully suited and dapper, driving the Lincoln right up to the camp, and one chatted on his cellphone the whole time. But still everyone laughed it off. Then one morning everyone was gone. Which was when the fun began.

Not only did the mayor personally give the police instructions to clean up the park, but he actually requested a helicopter with infra-red detection equipment to find the encampments buried "deep in the bush." (No shit, he used that phrase.) He set up a hotline that a citizen could call to report an encampment, with a guarantee that it would be gone within 24 hours.

He went one farther than the media and targeted people sleeping on the beach at the foot of the park, as well as people sleeping in vehicles. Suddenly a person sleeping in a camper or van or even car (such as yours truly) would get a violent cop knock in the night and be given a ticket with the eerie small town warning "Mayor Willie Brown doesn't want people sleeping in vehicles anymore." Obvious live-in vehicles, such as the full-size converted yellow school bus which housed a family with three kids, would be left a flier reading: "WARNING: This vehicle is parked illegally. If not moved in 72 hours it will be towed . . ." In the morning people would announce with something like a touch of pride "I got the flier!"

The sweeps on the beach were conducted by park police, and they'd simply walk down the beach at first light and roust everyone sleeping there. Sometimes they'd issue citations, other times just warnings. They told Floppy and Dina, "You can't sleep in Uncle Sam's park," and then they let them be.

One cold morning I was fully wrapped in my mummy sleeping bag and I heard the sound of plodding feet approaching in the sand. Louder and louder they stepped until they reached my feet. "Hey . . ." I pulled my sleeping bag off my head. Silhouetted against the early morning sky was a cop with ticket book in hand. In my recollection he had an angry look on his face, ready for battle, but when he saw how dazed and sleepy I was he became a person again and asked if I slept there overnight, offering me a chance to lie my way out of it by saying "no". I though about it a second and decided to say "yes" anyway, and he stood there a moment and then walked away saying I had to leave. I didn't, and that was that.

It would seem my biggest danger while sleeping on the beach is myself, as one night I awoke from sleepwalking carrying one boot, my knapsack and my sleeping bag, standing on surf-wet sand. It's pretty startling coming to consciousness standing up with violent waves breaking 15 feet away in the darkness.

The gutterpunks would still descend upon the park in the mornings and strew their belongs all around them in a manner that could be called an encampment. But it being daytime, before the 10pm park curfew, they were technically legal. No matter. The cops rode through on their off-road motorcycles and singled people out for full searches. They wouldn't find much, as it is common gutterpunk practice to bury their opiates and crystal methadone.

The next step was to fence off the whole area, with Willie Brown narrating the whole affair with Clinton-esque rederik: "We're going to make the park a place for goodness." And so on.

Through all this the cops were mostly civil. They were aware of the political motivations of the whole thing, and didn't take it that seriously. As I mentioned, when they'd issue a summons they would pretty much tell you to ignore it. When they fenced off the main congregation area ("punker hill"), they even handed out little plastic bags labeled "Personal Belongings Bag" for everyone to haul away their stuff. But there were exceptions to this rule of courtesy. Two cops who work the night shift with the ready-for-TV names of Gulf & Martinez are known to wake people with a kick to the head, and one night someone was arrested and badly beaten while handcuffed.

As yellow journalism always needs a controversy, the press changed their general stance on the issue and came out in favor of the homeless, indignantly criticizing the mayor for heartlessly evicting these poor homeless people. The new headlines in the same papers were more like: "Where Will They All Sleep?" They ran stories on the shortage of shelters. Public sentiment turned against what was dubbed "Operation Shopping Cart". It only got worse as the people expelled from he park caused much irritation by sleeping in doorways and generally branching out into other neighborhoods. But it was too late, there was too much momentum, and the raids continued.