Deputies remove homeless group

Panhandlers say gifts of clothing were taken

CHAPEL HILL -- Following complaints from the public, Orange County deputies removed several panhandlers for trespassing at the Interstate 40 off-ramp to N.C. 86 Tuesday morning.

Two of the panhandlers are a self-described "alcoholic" married couple who have lived in the field between the highway and the westbound off-ramp since the winter. Taz Herbert and Barbara Sims said deputies took all their belongings, including two new sleeping bags and clothing they had received from a local church this week.

"I haven't even worn 'em," said Sims, sitting on a brick wall on North Columbia Street and panhandling for dinner money. She avoids the Inter-Faith Council's community kitchen across the street because she says men there sexually harass her. She said deputies also took a grill she and her husband had been using to cook.

"We try to make money to eat on up there so I don't have to go [to the kitchen]," said Sims, who often panhandles at the I-40 off-ramp.

In a news release, the Sheriff's Office said it had removed 12 people, but Sims and Herbert claimed there were only seven: the couple and five men who had arrived Monday night and had never stayed there before.

Sims and Herbert said the deputies came before 6 a.m. to survey the scene and take pictures. The news release said deputies found people sleeping under trees, cooking and panhandling at the top of the ramp. "Two of the males stated they just arrived the previous night from Louisiana," the news release said.

On Columbia Street downtown Tuesday evening, one of those removed, Thomas Mills, 50, said he had hitchhiked from a shingling job in New Orleans and was on his way back to his hometown of Greenville, N.C. "I'm traveling," he said.

Denny Gates, 56, said the deputies were "harassing me for no [expletive] reason." Gates, an Alamance County native, said he was just passing through Chapel Hill. "There's no telling where I'm going," he said.

Deputies issued a warning to the group that they will be charged with trespassing if they return. "No Trespassing" signs were installed Tuesday.

Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass, seven deputies and inmates from the Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough cleaned up two truckloads of trash by the intersection, the release said. Herbert said that "trash" was his and Sims' good clothes.

"They said I was trash," he said. "I agree with that, but give her her clothes back."

Pendergrass did not return phone calls Tuesday evening.

The operation comes after recent complaints to government officials about homeless camps at the intersection.

"They leave large amounts of trash along the roadside daily," Chapel Hill resident Virginia Guerra wrote in a recent letter to Gov. Mike Easley. "We are sure that littering is against the law and do not understand why the law is not being enforced.

"We have also seen these people urinating by the side of the road," the letter continued. "They have had open fires to cook food and have set up tents and blankets behind the Chapel Hill sign on an embankment" off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The letter was forwarded to Chapel Hill Town Hall and received July 11.

Catherine Lazorko, spokeswoman for the town, said that the area at N.C. 86 and I-40 is outside Chapel Hill's jurisdiction but that the town has been working with the Sheriff's Office.