State troopers arrested longtime activist Karl Meyer on Thursday morning after he spent the night on the Capitol lawn in protest of a state law banning camping on public property. Speaking with the Scene after his arrest, Meyer says a recent Supreme Court ruling permitting cities and states to punish unhoused campers spurred him into action.
Tennessee legislators had already passed the controversial anti-camping bill in 2022, making it a class-E felony to camp on public property statewide, despite protests from homelessness service providers who warned penalties would not solve the issue — and despite bizarre comments about Hitler from Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) during discussion of the bill. The law was an expansion of a 2020 ordinance that made it a felony to camp on state property, which came in response to camping protests outside the Capitol.
Debate over the bill also garnered national attention when one lawmaker referenced Hitler while voicing his support
Meyer, founder of the Catholic Worker-affiliated Nashville Greenlands, says he witnessed a bit of the difficulties of living outdoors that evening. It rained on him, and he spoke with unhoused people who occasionally camp nearby.
Ahead of his camp-out on Wednesday evening, Meyer sent Gov. Bill Lee a letter requesting a conversation about the constitutionality of not just the camping bill but also of gun laws passed in recent years. Meyer says he also tried to schedule a meeting through the governor's online request form, but per an email he shared with the Scene, the request was denied due to a scheduling conflict.
Meyer says around 9 a.m., troopers came by and said they found footage of him sleeping on state property and that they “wanted to give me an opportunity to leave.” Meyer says he instead explained he wanted to speak to the governor and that he believed he had a constitutional right to be on state property. He calls the arresting state troopers “very professional and very cooperative.”
Meyer was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors for criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, but not the felony charge.
“I was not disorderly,” Meyer says. He questions how anyone can trespass at the state Capitol since “citizens also have a right to be there to petition their representatives.”
Karl Meyer escorted away by state troopers
Photographer Ray Di Pietro was present to capture the moments leading up to Meyer being taken away by state troopers.
Meyer is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 23 for a settlement hearing in front of Judge John Aaron Holt. (Meyer says he first went before Judge Holt in 1998 on a similar trespassing charge.) Meyer isn’t done protesting and plans to return to the Capitol next week and camp out again. He hopes to show Tennesseans that “we own the government.”
“The governor works for us,” says Meyer. “We employ the governor. We pay the salaries of every government employee, even [those] in the prison-industrial complex. ... People like me and the poorest people in Nashville and the homeless people — we're the raw material of that industry, and they grind us up sometimes.”
The Scene reached out to Lee’s office for comment, but has not heard back.
