Homeless woman arrested for disturbing the peace

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Sarah L. Harless, 40, was arrested yesterday morning after an employee of the Quality Inn at Newberry Road and Tower Road said she was bothering hotel customers while eating the free breakfast offered to hotel guests.

An Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy responded to the call and reportedly found Harless seated in the lobby, eating waffles. He asked her for proof that she was staying at the hotel, and she gave a room number but could not provide any names for the others in that room, only describing them as “he is a black guy and a white girl.” She then told the deputy to go away.

The deputy had her gather up her breakfast and walk with him to the room, but she reportedly started yelling and told him he needed a warrant. After knocks on the door went unanswered, the deputy told her she needed to leave the property, but she began yelling at him and at the hotel employee. The deputy then attempted to detain her, but she rolled over on her back. The deputy held her there until other deputies arrived to handcuff her.

Harless has been charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest without violence and has been released on her own recognizance. She was previously arrested on August 11 in the same area for violating the County’s panhandling ordinance and released on her own recognizance. She has an active warrant out of Broward County and a Notice to Appear from Broward.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

  • Ship her back to Browser County! There are many local residents in need. Do not encourage the homeless from elsewhere to come to Gainesville. My daughter says she does not feel safe downtown due to the homeless!

  • Welcome to Gangsville, the friendliest place on earth for criminals and homeless! You can blame all of this on the city commission for attracting bums by creating dignity village, free bus passes, and other benefits for not participating in helping yourself. Thanks Poe.

  • The city and county need to address our panhandling and vagrant/homeless problem already. Grace was supposed to end this and it made things worse. They need to rethink the whole problem and address it. Zero tolerance. The vagrants are getting aggressive and leave a lot of trash behind wherever they go. They can start with getting the panhandlers out of the medians.
    Collect all the vagrants, bring them to Grace, process them, & send them back to where they came from.

  • Every day there’s a story about a vagrant committing a crime in the AC… Other counties are sending their released inmates to our community to receive benefits from Grace. We cannot accept criminals from other counties here, they need to address their own problems and not dump it on Alachua county. This practice needs to stop. Wheres Mark Sexton on this & Poe & Co don’t know this either or are they giving it the blind eye because we’re a sanctuary city?

  • Why can’t we just put these animals out of the misery ?
    Turn them into Soylent Green

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