After spotting a panhandler in his community, a man decided to offer the vagrant a job, saying he’d give him $15 an hour in exchange for doing yard work. When the panhandler refused, the man returned with his own sign. Things escalated — and it was caught on camera.
Ryan Bray was in his vehicle at a Bradenton, Florida insection when a panhandler approached and asked for some cash, according to Fox 13.
“He reached his arms inside my vehicle, resting them and said, ‘Hey, do you have any money?’ I said, ‘No, but I have one better for you,’” Bray recalled. Instead of giving the guy a handout, Bray offered the panhandler a job.
Bray — who works for Bray Remodeling, his family’s business — said he’d pay the man $15 an hour to do yard work at his house, which was just down the road. Rather than being grateful for the opportunity to earn an honest living and taking advantage of the offer, the panhandler didn’t take too kindly to the proposal.
“He said, ‘Absolutely not,’” Bray explained.
Bray said the homeless man only wanted money and became angry.
“So, I started rolling up my window, he’s getting belligerent the whole time and then he kicks my tire,” Bray said. “I said enough’s enough.”
So, later that Sunday, Bray said he came back to the intersection with a sign that read, “I offered him $15 an hour to do yardwork for me, and he refused. If we as a community stop paying them, they will leave our neighborhood!”
From there, Bray said things escalated and the Bradenton Police responded.
“What frustrated me is the belligerence if you don’t give them money,” Bray said. “They curse and they yell at you. Said he’s going to ‘rape my mother, kill my wife,’ you know why? Because, I didn’t give you any dollars. Don’t get belligerent with people that don’t give you money.”
On another side of the story, ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska talked to the man Bray identified as the aggressive panhandler. The man only said he wanted us to identify him as “Alabama” and that he didn’t do anything wrong.
“I said, ‘hey brother, I don’t want no trouble now’ I said. ‘Now you want trouble, let’s rock and roll,” Alabama said. “Then they [the police] get on my ***. I said ‘why you getting on me man?’ I said ‘that’s stalking.'”
Alabama said Bray was the aggressor and that Bray never offered him a job.
“He’s a rich preppy [expletive], piece of [expletive] who thinks I’m supposed to take his [expletive] because he’s got money and he lives down here. I don’t care what you got brother,” Alabama said. “I never had no trouble until this dude shows up. Just because he’s got money, don’t mean as homeless people, we don’t have rights.”
Florida law states that panhandling is a misdemeanor. But, each municipality can choose whether to enforce the state law.
Bray wants the City of Bradenton to pass stronger legislation against aggressive panhandling. Nevertheless, Bray is sticking to his story and has time to stand there with his sign exposing the beggar as a bum.
Watch the video below for more details:
