Cruel and Unusual: City Plays ‘Baby Shark’ Song on Loop to Drive Out Homeless People

The Mind Unleashed – by Elias Marat

Across the United States, rising income inequality and surging homelessness is leading cities to introduce brutal measures meant to drive out people living on the streets. From hostile architecture like unneeded bike racks to “bum-proof” benches and spikes on every surface imaginable, cities large and small are doing all they can to make life literally unlivable for the already unfortunate indigent population left desperate for a bit of rest.

But now, officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, have devised possibly the cruelest means of dissuading the homeless from sleeping on city property: a never-ending loop of obnoxious, weaponized children’s songs including the infamous Baby Shark.

Leah Rockwell, the city’s Parks and Recreation director, told the Palm Beach Post that the goal is to prevent people from sleeping outside of the glass-walled Waterfront Lake Pavilion, a lavish rental banquet facility that can rake in around $240,000 per year from events, according to the Associated Press.

Songs on the municipal playlist include such dreaded earworms as the auto-tuned abomination Raining Tacos and the infamous Baby Shark, an old campfire sing-along which became viral after South Korean company Pinkfong produced a music video of the sticky, repetitive song.

Rockwell argues that event staff and customers attending weddings, business meetings, bar mitzvahs and birthday celebrations shouldn’t have to trip over homeless people when they leave events at the pavilion, which overlooks the town’s Great Lawn.

Rockwell told the Post:

“People are paying a lot of money to use the facility. Thousands of dollars.

We want to make sure people paying this money had a facility that was clean and open and continue to use it in the future.”

The tactic brings to mind the use of blaring heavy metal music used by U.S. military interrogators to torture prisoners of war and terror suspects in Iraq’s dreaded Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan’s Baghram Air Base, and Guantanamo Bay or the 7-Eleven caught blasting a high pitched piercing sound to keep homeless people away.

In a statement emailed to CBS, a city spokesperson also confirmed that the music is being played on the Great Lawn during the day and night, but only as a “temporary measure.”

The statement read:

“Music is also played overnight on a loop by our pavilion to discourage congregating and, if appropriate, to encourage people to seek safer, more appropriate shelter through the many resources that are available.

The music volume complies with City code, and we are exploring the possibility of having set hours for the Great Lawn and pavilion.”

While the use of the music is planned as a temporary countermeasure against rough sleepers attracted to the facility’s patio, Rockwell hopes that the city will soon formalize hours for the facility to allow the police to enforce trespassing laws against houseless folks near the pavilion.

Illaya Champion told the Post that “it’s wrong” to use the music to chase people away, but he’ll sleep there regardless of the hazard, even if “it’s on and on, the same songs.”

The city’s choice of songs shows that officials have learned from the mistake committed by the City of Lake Worth, which previously attempted to drive homeless people from the town’s Cultural Plaza by blaring classical music. In that case, they ended up enjoying the classical tunes.

By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

The Mind Unleashed

12 thoughts on “Cruel and Unusual: City Plays ‘Baby Shark’ Song on Loop to Drive Out Homeless People

  1. THESE DAMN JUDEO KRISCHUNS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE DEALT WITH DAMMIT!!!!
    THERE SHOULD BE N O HOMELESS NATIONALS IN AMERICA…………

    1. Blame the realestate flippers, driving up prices for nothing more than mammon. These assholes shouldn’t be allowed to sell what they buy for at least 5 years, then cap the profit margin. This way people can afford to live like human fkg beings, not like animals because pieces of shit like Donald Trump wants to fill his pockets with cash.

      Apartment buildings and hotels should be capped, homes different story, go hog wild, who gives a shit!

      Every apartment building flipper is ruining this goddamned country by forcing American Nationals into the damn gutter.

      Build more section 8 housing you fkg Joo ass commies. You fence off our land, then you fk us in the ass with your flipping bullshit.

  2. Stupid people
    The human can tune out annoying shit you know
    I’ve ignored my Ex’s bull shit just fine and other winey people too

    What about the deaf homeless guy?
    Ha!
    It all
    Seems childish

    We’ve lost our ability to have any compassion
    Fck these human skin bags that come up with this crap

    1. Why tune it out? Drive the homeless people from their shelters and they can wander into the gated neighborhoods and play with matches.

    2. THEIR “COMPASSION” IS LIMITED TO “SAVE THE WHALE!!” OR,SEND MORE MONEY TO THOSE POOR,STARVING, JEWS!!!

  3. Try listening to the “Happy Birthday To You” song for literally 5 HOURS STRAIGHT, NON STOP on a train from Qingdao to Wuhan in China with nowhere to go but wanting to jump out the window and walk home. That happened to me.

    So I can completely understand their torture. All that night when I returned home was having that song ringing in my ears and through the next day. If that ain’t mental/psychological torture, then I don’t know what is.

    1. Go on the ‘It’s a Small World After All’ ride at Disneyland and see how long it takes you to get THAT damn song out of your head.

      1. Believe me, I can imagine. Try also being forced to listen to an ice cream truck in your neighborhood on Torture Tuesday playing, “This is the song that never ends”. I wanna blow those trucks away for noise pollution.

        If I did what they are doing of course, I would be fined but not them illegals. They just want to work for a better life and also think of the children who just want their ice cream and all of the mindless sheeple that follow. My rights apparently don’t matter.

        Unfrigginbelievable……

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