Published April 12, 2007 in the Orlando Weekly

You read it here first: Crime in Orlando is no longer an issue. We have proof: On April 4, the Orlando Police Department sent a ton of cops, at least one of whom was wearing a hood and at least four of whom were undercover, to arrest 21-year-old Eric Montanez for violating the city's ordinance dictating that thou shalt not engage in "large group feeding in parks owned or controlled by the city in the Greater Downtown Park District."

Montanez was feeding the homeless, which in the hierarchy of criminal behavior ranks as less than a misdemeanor. Of course, he has a nose ring, and that means terrorist to us.

The arrestee is a member of Orlando Food Not Bombs, an organization that gives vegetarian food to homeless people in Lake Eola Park every Wednesday afternoon. Last summer the Orlando city council tried to ban feeding more than 25 people in a public park without a permit. The ACLU's Central [Florida] Chapter retaliated with a federal lawsuit. Since then, the hippies have continued feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park, devising schemes to circumnavigate the law. Until April 4, the city looked the other way. There may have been a "gentlemen's agreement" that no arrests would be made until the federal suit was settled, though the city denies it.

Cops surveilled Montanez as he fed homeless people stew. When he'd fed 30 of them, they sprang into action. The police report says that the officers wanted to give Montanez a "notice to appear," but he got all indignant and threw his ID on the ground, so he had to be cuffed and stuffed. He sat in jail on a $250 bond until the next morning.

Montanez says that isn't the way it went down. "They should have arrested everyone there," Montanez says. "They were just looking for me, man. They see me down there all the time."

And just to make sure they had an airtight case, the cops even collected the stew as evidence.