Pensacola homeless advocate arrested for cutting lock on downtown port-a-potty

Michael Kimberl, a well-known Pensacola advocate for homeless people, has been arrested for allegedly cutting off the lock of a port-a-potty in Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza.

A Pensacola Police Department report states a police officer observed Kimbrel cut a lock off a Downtown Improvement Board rented port-a-potty July 1 to allow a woman to use it.

Police were watching the port-a-potty that day because the DIB had complained locks on their port-a-potties in the park had been cut every week since April 8.

The report stated police had also placed a camera on the port-a-potty that captured the lock being cut.

Kimberl told the News Journal just before he turned himself in Wednesday morning that based on legal advice, he could not comment at this time.

Kimberl was charged with one count of criminal mischief, according to Escambia County Jail records. He spent 18 minutes in jail Wednesday before being released on a $1,000 bond.

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Kimberl has no criminal record and for years has fought for the rights of homeless people in Pensacola. Kimberl is the director of the Alfred-Washburn Center, a nonprofit resource center, and co-founder of Sean's Outpost, an organization that founded the Satoshi Forest campground.

Kimberl has also volunteered with Food Not Bombs Pensacola in feeding homeless people in MLK Jr. Plaza on Fridays, which is what he was doing when he was confronted by police July 1.

Food Not Bombs Pensacola issued a statement on its Facebook page late Tuesday night blasting the DIB for the practice of locking its port-a-potties.

"The message from the DIB is loud and clear: 'We don't care about community enrichment; We just want your money,'" the statement said. "Free access to public parks plays a critical role in the physical, social, and mental health of communities. Restricting access to bathrooms creates unsanitary conditions, and makes it difficult for families, the elderly, and people with certain medical conditions or disabilities to enjoy the park."

DIB Executive Director Walker Wilson said the port-a-potties are paid for with fees from business owners who participate in the Palafox Market, and when the market is open Saturdays so are the bathrooms to anyone in the park.

Wilson said the port-a-potties are placed in the park Fridays when the company can deliver them and they are locked to keep them clean until the market opens Saturday morning.

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"Those locks have been getting cut on Friday evening, and we get there Saturday and it may be clean, it may be a wreck," Wilson said.

Wilson said in one incident, a person locked themselves in the restroom and refused to come out.

"We've got to contact the company that brings those out there for us and have them come down replace it, clean it and we have to end up paying for it out of the funds that market vendors pay to be down there," Wilson said.

Boris Gaidai, a volunteer with Food Not Bombs Pensacola, told the News Journal he witnessed the encounter Kimberl had with police July 1.

"They told Mike they had a video and someone that looked like Mike had come up to the port-a-potty, cut the locks so an old lady could use the restroom," Gaidai said. "While they were talking to him about this, they were trying to get him to incriminate himself."

Gaidai said the police told Kimberl that they would take the video back to the DIB, who would decide if they wanted to press charges.

He added that police told him "if they (the DIB) decided to press charges, there'd be news for us, and the warrant went out yesterday," Gaidai said.

Gaidai said it was a "messed up" situation that a restroom in a public park was locked in the first place.

"The Downtown Improvement Board is basically saying you can only use the port-a-potties if you're a paying customer," Gaidai said.

Wilson pushed back on that, saying the restrooms are open to anyone when the market is open and the DIB restructured the rates vendors have to pay to help raise half the funds to build a permanent restroom in the park that will be managed by the city.

It will be up to the city to decide when that restroom is open once it's built, Wilson said.

"For Mr. Kimberl's group to say we don't have compassion or we don't try to do anything to help the homeless population is utterly ridiculous," Wilson said. "At the end of the day, he's breaking the lock on something that we've got out there for a private event that these market vendors pay for that we do open up to the public for anyone to come down and participate in."

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola homeless advocate Kimberl arrested for cutting restroom lock