Hillsborough County’s rookie state attorney, Andrew Warren, is off to a good start. A lot of interest was directed at his office over how he would ultimately handle the high-profile case of activists arrested for feeding the homeless in downtown Tampa. They were without a license, but not sans good intentions at Lykes Gaslight Square Park. The fact that it happened while national championship football fans and assorted VIPs were ogling Tampa–while the city was putting on the visitor Ritz–was hardly incidental. Warren dropped the trespassing charges while noting that “prosecuting people for charitable work” is hardly a part of his mission to make the community safer and promote justice.
It wasn’t exactly a Solomonic decision, but still one that required common sense. Warren directed the group, Food Not Bombs, to work with the city to resolve the matter–Gaslight park is arguably not an ideal venue for food-sharing events–and to remain nonviolent.