Do Winter Haven Police Have a Habit of Harassing Poor and/or Homeless People?

I was a witness today to an incident that made my blood pressure go up, and it was not the first time.

I visited the beautiful and very modern Winter Haven Public Library this morning. While entering the parking lot my car was almost hit by a K-9 Winter Haven police cruiser. It was going against the flow of traffic in the parking lot. There was a second police cruiser already parked in the lot.

There is a public phone in the outside foyer of this great library. Citizens can make local phone calls for free.

After I parked my car, I went in. The K-9 police officer was going through the personal belongings of, what appeared to be, a poor person. Apparently he had been cited for some "violation."

After the person left the library and when he was unlocking his bicycle, I tried to ask him what had happened. He was very afraid to talk to me and just rode his bike away from the library.

When I talked to the police officer who was in charge, I was informed that they have a right to issue a trespassing violation document if the person is "behaving suspiciously." When I asked this police officer what the person was doing that was suspicious, she refused to answer my question and told me that if management calls they have a right to cite the person.

When I went inside the library I asked one of the managing clerks If anyone had called the police. No one had called the police.

This was not the first time that I had seen the WH Police Department behave in an improper or non-normal manner.

A year ago I was at the balcony of my apartment. It faces north. I was reading a book. All of a sudden sirens start wailing and five police cruisers (I counted them) were converging on a refuse dumpster to the side of a take-out pizza restaurant. There was a person inside the dumpster. Apparently, I guess, he was looking for food.

I could not hear the conversation from my balcony. To this day I do not know why the Winter Haven Police Department had to send five cruisers to check on what people call a dumpster diver. Did they think that the person was a "terrorist" who was going to blow up the pizza place? Or was this one more incident of policemen overreacting to a very simple incident? Or were they there to harass a poor person?

This year we have seen police use brutal force to clear out "Occupy [city name]" protesters. Are policemen and policewomen taught to hate people who are not capitalist millionaires?