A Lower East Side woman was arrested yesterday April 16 after painting a message asking for help for a homeless friend on a green construction fence barricading an empty lot. THE Sun Village reported that Helena Münninghoff, 57, a former homeless resident of the neighborhood, had painted the words “HELP RICKY… BACK ON HIS FEET” on the corner of Third Street and Avenue C in Manhattan to support his friend, Ricky Cole, who is is recovering from spine surgery and is in the process of regaining mobility.
Less than an hour later, two patrol cars were on the scene and Münninghoff was handcuffed after police found her painting on the fence, which had long been scrawled and stripped of old posters stuck to tattered wheat. Reverend Billy’s Stop Shopping Choir, a New York-based performance group whose secular pop-up project known as Earth Church was hosting a nearby ‘holy’, approached the stage to protest the arrest of Münninghoff, criticizing the officers present for wasting taxpayers’ money and having nothing better to do.
Münninghoff told the Sun Village about the rocky start to her friendship with Cole, who initially attacked her after her mother died in 2015, as well as her life as a former homeless resident in the East Village. When asked if she was an artist, Münninghoff, an established neighborhood figure given the way she greeted several passing friends during her interview, shrugged and simply said she was a “To be human”.
A video of the arrest and adjacent protest shared with Hyperallergic shows at least five officers circling around Münninghoff, who had already been restrained, before escorting him into the nearest patrol car to be reserved for the 9th District “just down the block”. Protesters began chanting “Let her go, let her go” once Münninghoff sat in the back of the vehicle, declaring it was her neighborhood.
The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic request for comment.
As the vehicle containing Münninghoff pulled out of the block, the band began singing Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir’s original song, “Now Bird,” to protest the social and environmental impacts of “Cop City” in Atlanta, Washington. Georgia.
Münninghoff was held in a cell in the 9th district for nearly four hours until she agreed to accept a court appearance ticket. Upon her release, Münninghoff supported her actions, stating that she had never been arrested before.
“I worked here in good faith,” she said THE Sun Village. “There is a homeless person that I am helping. I was trying to tell them that, but they didn’t have the patience to listen.
Savitri D, the director of Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, said Hyperallergic that Münninghoff was a wonderful and caring neighbor for the Church of Earth, and that she is “always there sweeping and cleaning [the block] and keep it nice, talk to people.
“This block was under scaffolding for years and this wall is usually covered in wild posters,” Savitri continued. “They put them out in broad daylight all the time with no problem, mostly major label fashion and music – the wall never stays bare for more than a day or two… And here she is, doing a community announcement and boom! Typical NYPD overreaction.
