Okay, well, I'm gonna call my, my higher ups and figure out
how we're gonna handle this.
Okay.
My name is Norma Thornton.
I live in Wool Head City, Arizona.
Bull Color, Friends and back come see Eric.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
So I've made contact with the lady and a gentleman that was here.
Um, I went up and talked to her.
I said to her, What are you doing?
She goes, I'm just, uh, bringing the, the transients of food.
They're hungry.
Yeah, so I just got a very, I'm not on speakerphone, right?
Yeah, you are.
I'll take you off.
I think this is a PR nightmare, but, Okay.
Here's the bad news.
Uh oh.
You're under arrest.
I am, yes.
For violating the city ordinance.
Good news is all I'm gonna.
Get your fingerprints, all that stuff, and I will
bring you right back here.
The city of Bullhead has made it a crime to feed the needy.
Technically, I'm supposed to be handcuffing you and everything too,
but I'm, I'm not gonna do that.
Cause I don't think, I don't think you're a hard and criminal, I don't
think you're, you're out to hurt me.
I've not out hurt anybody.
Just so you know, you are under arrest.
This is an arrest.
You must go to court.
Do not come back into the park and feed people.
If you do, you will definitely spend the night in the jail in Kingman.
I had a restaurant for a very long time and I worked
restaurant work for quite.
A friend of mine had been volunteering, making food for
the homeless, had asked me would I please be interested in, in,
uh, serving food one day a week.
And I found it very exciting and so volunteered.
This gave me purpose and a good way to use my skill and
kind of spiraled to doing.
More and more.
I started out a wonderful day.
I made, had good food made up for my, uh, for the
people down at the park.
Uh, I'd just finished up serving approximately 26 or 27 people
and the very last person that come through, I literally was
scraping the bottom of my pans, finished off the food, gave him,
and as he was walking away, these two police officers drove up.
Uh, Bullhead City.
Finally the day came to come and talk to the prosecutor person,
and then they would set a date for criminal criminal court.
So,
Hmm.
Thought of, of people being hungry.
I mean, I'm not making a big impact.
It's not that much.
But at least some people have enough food to survive, and I can't even
imagine living in this country and being hungry to be told that you
cannot feed the hungry regardless of, of what, what the circumstances.
It's sad, but it makes me really, really angry to put it bluntly.
After the court, this reporter sat down beside me because I was sitting
right on the brink of tears, and he sat down, talked to me a little
bit, and he said, May I take apic?
Take your picture.
He asked me a few questions.
The day after the front page blasts across, grandmother arrested for
feeding the homeless or something.
I'm never gonna stop feeding them.
Never.
I am still able to serve people.
It's not ideal.
It's there's no tables, there's no grass.
They get their food and they just sit up against a fence.
It gives us some shade.
When I was serving in the park, word would get out.
That I was serving, and it was much easier for people
to get to me and to the food.
We always kept the park clean so that the places always left as
clean or cleaner than we arrived.
Nobody camped in the park.
Lived in the park.
The city has made it very.
That I can have a party and host up to a hundred people
with no consequence at all.
So long as I am not feeding the homeless,
I am not enabling homelessness.
I'm enabling these people to survive.