photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Police and city workers interact with a camper at the Amtrak homeless camp while ensuring the area is cleared for heavy equipment that was scheduled to clean up the site Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

Hours before the sun rose Wednesday two teams of Lawrence police officers walked through a longtime homeless camp by the Kansas River, alerting remaining campers that they needed to leave before heavy equipment arrived to clear the area.

Police, including Chief Rich Lockhart, notified 15 or so people, many of whom had been sleeping, that they needed to clear out once and for all.

“I know we’re ugly alarm clocks,” one officer told a man, who was sleeping in a large tent.

Eventually the man emerged in a three-piece suit and necktie and walked away after making brief small talk with the officers, who knew him by name.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Chief Rich Lockhart and other police officers interact with campers at the Amtrak homeless camp while ensuring the area is cleared for heavy equipment that was scheduled to clean up the site early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A camper leaves the Amtrak homeless camp early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

The message to leave was one that the campers have been hearing since mid-August, when the City of Lawrence announced that the sprawling camp between the East Lawrence Amtrak Station and the Kansas River would be shut down come Oct. 15.

While many people at the camp had packed up and left earlier this week, some defiantly remained, insisting that the city-owned land was their home and that having to leave would render them homeless. Lockhart called the predawn walk-through a “last resort” after campers had resisted nearly two months of notice.

A handful of people argued vociferously with officers and took 30 to 40 minutes to gather their things, as officers offered to assist them. Campers had been given tote bags to fill in the days leading up to the move-out deadline, and city trucks were available earlier in the week to move larger, heavier objects. Items were taken to the Pallet village in northern Lawrence where owners could retrieve them.

While some campers accepted help, others called officers obscenities and threatened to sue. By the time the sun rose, though, the camp had been cleared of people, with no arrests having been made, which Lockhart said was the goal, along with eventually getting people into supportive housing.

“These guys showed great restraint,” Lockhart told the Journal-World of the 10 or so officers on the scene in the early morning when temperatures hovered around freezing and dying fires smoldered near campsites. “They are very patient with people. They helped people move their stuff.”

Lockhart said he understood that the situation was difficult, that people considered the woods their home and that it was hard to move on, especially for those who had lived there for four or five years with all “their earthly possessions.” But he also said that the situation was “dangerous” for people, indicating that campers had been victims of violence and heavy narcotic addiction. Human waste and used drug paraphernalia could be seen as police flashlights lit up pathways strewn with garbage.

“You got vulnerable people who are really being exploited down here,” Lockhart said.

While some taunted the police for escorting people away, Lockhart said he was proud of how his officers handled the situation without use of force.

“That’s not the way most police departments are going to handle this,” Lockhart said of officers who woke people, talked to them and directed them where to go. “They are very compassionate.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A police officer interacts with a camper at the Amtrak homeless camp while ensuring the area is cleared for heavy equipment that was scheduled to clean up the site early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A police officer helps a camper at the Amtrak homeless camp early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

City workers are pictured at the Amtrak homeless camp early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, as a camper carts her belongings away.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A police officer assist a camper at the Amtrak homeless camp while ensuring the area is cleared for heavy equipment that was scheduled to clean up the site Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

Officers did a final walk-through of the camp, slicing open tents to make sure no people remained, before city workers were to come in with bulldozers, bobcats and dumptrucks to clear deep piles of rubbish that had accumulated over recent years.

City workers also intended to clear underbrush in the area and improve visibility along the well-trod pathways that lead to scenic vistas of the Kansas River.

“Visibility reduces criminal activity and the likelihood that people will come back,” Lockhart said.

He noted that the remaining campers Wednesday morning were “some of the most difficult cases” and he hoped that the camp’s closure would “give them a reset and a chance to start thinking about things differently.”

City crews were hoping to clear the entire site in a day, said Pat Hennessy, the city’s park operations manager.

Mitch Young, park district supervisor and houseless liaison with Parks and Rec, said he thought the morning went well.

“The homeless outreach team was able to make contact with almost everybody since this area was posted for us to be cleaning it up,” he said.

“Our mission and our goal today was to get this area cleaned up, being the eagle restoration area that it is, and to get it back to nature as it was intended.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A camper leaves the Amtrak homeless camp early Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A view of the Kansas River from the Amtrak homeless camp Wednesday morning, Oct. 16, 2024.