Activist arrested while livestreaming SLC homeless encampment cleanup

Carl Moore was released without bail later Thursday night, records show.

(Screengrab from the video by Carl Moore) Homeless man Carl Moore is arrested for being entered by Salt Lake City police when he saw unprotected people collecting their belongings in a field on Thursday, March 4, 2021 Near Cornell Street helped.

A Hopi activist working with the unprotected population of Salt Lake City was taken into custody Thursday evening during an arrest he streamed live online.

Many people who saw the video of Carl Moore’s arrest posted on his Facebook page commented that the officers acted inappropriately and targeted him.

The 44-year-old Moore has volunteered in homeless camps in the past few months.

Another volunteer, Charlee, who wanted to be identified only by her first name, said Moore had a truck and trailer and would turn up at camps designated for mitigation – what county and town officials considered routine removal of people and designate their property from areas where they live I had camped to get people out.

That’s what Moore was doing at a warehouse at 150 N. Cornell St. Thursday when police officers arrived from Salt Lake City, Charlee said.

Moore was watching the camp clearing up when he was arrested. The video on his Facebook page shows a group of at least half a dozen police officers approaching moors in the meadow where people had pitched tents.

An officer turned to Moore by his first name and told him to leave for invading private property and saying he would be arrested if he refused.

At this point in the video, Moore switched his camera to selfie mode. The video shows the officers walking behind him as he walks away from them. He looked calm and joked when they told him to go.

One officer told Moore to go the other way and said they would “not play that game today”. Moore replied, “Are we playing a game?” and continued asking about the “game” when officers told him to leave the property.

Officials again told Moore that he had trespassed. He asked them how they knew. An officer told him he was entering because the area was privately owned. Moore then asked “whose property?” and the officer said “the city”.

At that point the joke left Moore’s voice and he stopped and said, “The city? Are you serious? The city owns this property? “

The police then appeared to touch Moore’s arms and back. He pulled back and kept walking away from them, and he told the officers not to push him. Then the police started grabbing him as he walked on. Moore yelled “check this out” into the camera as the police pushed him to the ground.

After a few moments of darkness on the screen, a woman yells “Carl!” Picked up the phone. She turned the selfie mode off so the police and Moore were back on screen. Moore was on the ground with three policemen holding him. You can hear him yelling at the police that he was on his way to his truck.

The police told the woman who was filming to leave. She went to her car, which was heading in the direction Moore was going when he was arrested.

“I don’t know if anyone can come and help me, but Carl’s truck is here and I have my kids here,” she said into the camera. The woman mentioned that homeless people were loading their belongings in Moore’s truck.

An officer then came over and asked her to remove her car from the property, so she drove away. She later told people who watched Moore walk to his truck when he was arrested. She also said the police knocked the phone out of Moore’s hands. The woman called someone else to tell them about the arrest and said she did not want to go but left because of her children. She asked if someone could come and fetch Moore’s truck so it wouldn’t be confiscated.

Police claim in a likely statement that Moore disturbed a health department worker at the camp and that they were there to get him to leave.

The statement says that Moore is “slowly” walking away after a few clues.

“We followed him, keeping our hands and arms behind him so he wouldn’t turn and come back to interfere. Our arms touched his back when he decided to slow down and scream over his shoulder, ”the statement read. “He got very hostile and quickly turned to his left when this happened.”

Police officer Zachary Nold says Moore then punched him in the chest and tried to punch him in the face. Then Moore is said to have tried to leave.

“… We tried to take him into custody for multiple violations,” the statement said. “He withdrew and had to be taken to the ground where we had to force his hands behind his back and handcuff him.”

Prison records indicate that Moore was jailed on charges of four offenses, including assaulting a police officer and trespassing.

Moore is also a noted local environmental activist and advocate for indigenous peoples. He danced in traditional Native American clothing during the first Indigenous Peoples Day in Salt Lake City in 2017.

More recently, he has streamed his work with the homeless population of Salt Lake City.

Charlee said the officers knew Moore by name and that the arrest was “retaliation” for the videos. She called his arrest a “moral injury” to people who have become homeless and to those who volunteer to help them.

“It’s just very frustrating because we’re all seeing … the tireless, just tireless work that Carl is doing,” said Charlee. “He is simply incomparable when it comes to standing up for the unprotected.”

The prison records indicate that Moore was released from prison around 8:20 p.m. without having to pay bail.

The Salt Lake City Police Department did not return a call for comment Thursday night.

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