Fast-Thinking Cop Stops Illegal Foreclosure Boot Of Unwitting Renter, Family; Eviction Notice To Ex-Owner Failed To Name Tenants

In Providence, Rhode Island, The Providence Journal reports:

• You can’t do it this way. You can’t just show up at a family’s door and tell them to get out with no notice. It’s thuggery. But it almost happened. If not for some fast moving lawyers who know the territory and a compassionate cop, Angela Martinez and her three children and granddaughter would have been out on Lenox Avenue in Providence Tuesday morning.

***

• [Providence Police Capt. David] Lapatin arrived at 31 Lenox Ave. Tuesday morning to find a constable, a moving crew and police officers overseeing an eviction that he quickly figured out should not be happening.
• “Basically, it was an eviction notice sent to the owner of the house but not in the name of the tenant,” said Lapatin. “It’s pretty clear. You have to get them out separately.”
• He told the movers, who looked as if they really didn’t want to be there, to stop what they were doing. He told the constable and the police the eviction was off.
• Lapatin is also a lawyer and has done some work in landlord-tenant disputes. He knows the territory. And he said that since the landlord does not live in the house, an eviction notice to him is not an eviction notice to his tenants.

For more, see A cruel attempt to put a family on the street.