Privileged, slothful, and ever self-indulgent, the New Orleans “gutter punk” is a creature that inspires near universal disdain.

Our city’s new crusade to stop them, however, could wind up threatening us all.

Those of us in Uptown are thankfully spared from the infestation of unruly transients that mostly afflicts the Quarter and Marigny, but nevertheless we’ve all seen them at one time or another, begging for change, getting in fights, and making an all-around nuisance of themselves.

It’s hard to pin down precisely what makes a gutter punk, but the phrase generally refers to a young, white bum who displays some traits associated with punk subculture. They often panhandle, squat in abandoned buildings, and take on stray dogs (ostensibly as a means of avoiding arrest, since the LASPCA would have to be called out to take custody).

It is commonly suspected that many, if not most, gutter punks are voluntarily homeless. Their situation, the trope goes, is frequently a mere lifestyle choice, not a reflection of entrenched poverty.

The situation with the gutter punks became worse in recent months. Last November, WWL reported how Facebook groups had formed chronicling gutter punks “sleeping on sidewalks, aggressively panhandling at intersections and setting up camp overnight sometimes for days in Jackson Square.”

“They’re getting more aggressive. They’re coming in packs. They have dogs with chains on them. It’s intimidating to people walking down the street,” one business owner told WWL.

Finally, in January came the headline: “Frenchman Street musician shoots gutterpunk [sic] in self-defense.” Musician and war veteran Billy Gregory, 64, was outside a Marigny bar following a gig when a gang of gutter punks surrounded him and threatened to take his guitar.

The catalyst for this was, of course, utterly stupid. One of the gutter punks, the aptly-named Nicholas Temper, 24, had apparently become enraged because his girlfriend had complemented Gregory’s clothes. Sometime during the encounter Gregory felt threatened and pulled out a pistol, shooting Temper once in the chest. Some of the gutter punks followed Gregory and attacked him afterwards.

Despite conflicting accounts and the fact that Temper was not armed, Gregory was not charged with any crime. His attackers, on the other hand, were.

The regular drumbeat of complaints, together with the realization that the situation was turning violent, finally spurred a response. On March 27, the NOPD swept the Quarter and Marigny, arresting 22 gutter punks for violations such as Aggressive Solicitation, Illegal Vending, and Obstruction of Public Right-of-Ways.

The NOPD efforts were abetted by members of the “French Quarter Task Force,” a security patrol manned by off-duty officers funded by garbage magnate Sidney D. Torres. Torres also paid $4,000.00 to have LSPCA officers join police. The New Orleans Times-Picayune heralded the “raid” as “a sign of the new regime.”

Although it is not yet active, Mayor Landrieu’s “NOLA Patrol” – an unarmed civilian security patrol for the Quarter – has likewise been pitched as means of corralling gutter punks and controlling their activities.

In the abstract, this strong reaction seems positive. Again, gutter punks have few defenders. A recognized nuisance with few redeeming qualities, they have created an undeniable groundswell of loathing. A recent Times-Picayune online poll asking what the city ought to do about “French Quarter drifters” clocked in nearly 1,500 respondents (a whopping 77.94%) saying: “Arrest them all. They are a constant source of problems.”

Still, we should be wary of this kind of talk. Stereotyping is always over-inclusive. Some of the people we malign as gutter punks may simply be drifters who have fallen on hard times.

More fundamentally, regardless of whether gutter punks elicit sympathy, they’re human beings and they have rights. We can’t just “arrest them all.” If we get to the point where the harassment turns the other way, and bogus charges are brought en masse to push the gutter punks away, then it will become a cure that’s worse than the disease.

And who is to say that the rest of us wouldn’t suffer similar abuses? Unpopular groups tend to be like a canary in a coal mine when it comes to civil liberties issues. Years from now, I don’t want to be saying: “First they came for the gutter punks, but I said nothing, for I was not a gutter punk.”

We should also be concerned about the creation of privately-funded patrols or citizen patrols that are designed, in part, to intimate transients. Professional police employed by taxpayers are best equipped to fairly apply the law. They have proper training, full police authority, and their loyalties are not divided. Anything less invites abuses and questions of accountability.

The gutter punks do need ongoing attention, but the rule of law is more important than they are. No matter how awful or unsympathetic the target, our response must continue to be measured and appropriate.

Owen Courrèges, a New Orleans attorney and resident of the Garden District, offers his opinions for UptownMessenger.com on Mondays. He has previously written for the Reason Public Policy Foundation.