Orlando PD Arrest Three Orlando Food Not Bombs Members for Sharing Food in a Public Park

Orlando, Fl – Three members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested yesterday evening serving food to the hungry and the homeless at Lake Eola park.  Benjamin Markeson, Jessica Cross, and co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement Keith McHenry, were actively defying a 2006 city ordinance which bans the sharing of food in public parks to groups of more than 25 people.  Neither Mr. Markeson nor Ms. Cross were involved in sharing food and according to affidavits appear to be arrested for their leadership roles within the organization.  

Two plainclothes Orlando police officers were present throughout the 5:30 PM sharing, overtly filming the organization as they served food to more than forty people.  Given past statements from the Mayor Dyer’s press secretary, the mayor is likely directing police to avoid media coverage of enforcement of the unpopular ordinance prior to the 2012 mayoral race.  The effort made by Orlando police department to selectively enforce the ordinance and avoid arresting most of the individuals serving, appear to support this theory.

The arrests are part of a five year crusade on behalf of city mayor ‘Buddy’ Dyer, Commissioner Patty Sheehan, and other city commissioners to shut down the lake Eola sharings.  Orlando Food Not Bombs has been serving vegan meals to struggling families and the homeless in the area at least a year prior to the ordinance and view the effort on behalf of the city as merely a plank in a larger campaign to drive the poor and homeless outside of the gentrified downtown city center.  The sharings take place in the park near 500 E. Central on Monday mornings at 9:30 AM and Wednesday afternoons at 5:30 PM.   Despite the arrests Orlando Food Not Bombs has publically stated that they will not back down “until the last belly is full”.   

Among the arrested is Keith McHenry, cofounder of the Food Not Bombs movement.  The movement has its roots in 1980 when a group of anti-nuclear activists in Cambridge, Massachusetts held a bake sale to raise legal funds for a friend arrested protesting a local nuclear power plant.  Inspired by a poster they encountered as movers with the caption, “Wouldn't it be a beautiful day if the schools had all the money they needed and the airforce had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”, the organizers held the bake sale dressed as generals and told passerby’s that they were raising money to buy a bomber.  From these humble beginnings as a loose collection of environmental activists, Food Not Bombs has expanded to over 1,000 chapters active in over 60 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.  The Orlando chapter is one of 500 chapters currently active in the United States, and like all chapters in the global network the group operates in a purely democratic and non-hierarchal fashion.  More information can be found at their site at www.foodnotbombs.net.