By the 5:30 p.m. start time, the plan didn't seem so sure. Four homeless people waited for the protest -- and related feeding -- to begin.
The disorganization seemed somehow appropriate for a group that has been mired with problems since it started feeding homeless people in downtown Fort Lauderdale's Stranahan
Park. Food Not Bombs members claimed police harassment, but their game of capture the flag was what got members arrested for trespassing.
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The first police officer arrived about 45 minutes after the Fort Lauderdale protest was supposed to begin. A Food Not Bombs member sitting on the sidewalk sarcastically offered him some soup before four more officers arrived.
Haylee Becker was the de-facto leader of the event, despite the group's insistence that they don't have a power structure. Becker, a soft-spoken 19-year-old, said that no one could eat the food until sanitary utensils arrived, and no one ate. And they waited more than two and a half hours, fighting with each other occasionally.
Food Not Bombs member David Hitchcock was the only one to start an argument with an otherwise friendly police sergeant within seconds of the officer's arrival. It started with the sergeant looking for someone who was in charge and ended with yelling, the officer walking away, and Hitchcock heckling him by yelling, "That's a nice-looking badge."
By 9 p.m., the "all night" protest disbanded without incident.
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