Hate Crimes and Violence Against Homeless People (1987-Present)
1999:
Denver–Denver on Alert for Killer of the Homeless (USA Today 11/1/99, Washington Post 10/31/99, Rocky Mountain News 9/29/99)
A police chart labeled “Transient Homicide Cases” lists the names of five homeless men found dead in the past six weeks in the trendy Lower Downtown district.
Beside each name, two words describe the same manner of killing: “Blunt Force.”
All of the men were beaten to death, one so savagely that his skull was in pieces. Two were found together under a loading dock, the third in an alley, the fourth face down in the South Platte River and the fifth in a field near a hobo camp.
Reaction from homeless people has included: one homeless man known only as “Cadillac” now carries a can of pepper spray.
Dennis Ford, 49, another street person, uses a $12 battery-powered motion detector to warn of intruders. “A few seconds might make a difference between your living and dying,” says Ford.
A big, burly man known as “Tiny” relies on his size to ward off possible attacks.
The most persistent street rumor is that a pack of young men is picking on the homeless for sick thrills. In the only case so far with a witness, someone told police that several “juvenile male suspects were beating Melvin Washington, 47, in a downtown alley Sept. 8. He died a week after that.
John Parvensky, who heads the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, hopes the $100,000 reward brings results. “It is just as important to find and bring the killers to justice as it is to find the murderer of Jon-Benet Ramsey,”–Colorado�s other most notorious unsolved slaying.
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The discovery of the battered bodies of five homeless men in six weeks has Denver police investigating whether the rash of slayings is the work of a serial killer preying on the homeless.
Among the city�s estimated 5,800 homeless and those who wish to help them, fear is rising.. Shelters are increasing foot patrols, searching abandoned warehouses and freeway underpasses in hopes of coaxing the vulnerable and sick to safe houses.
Last Friday, an anonymous donor offered $100,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers–the largest award ever offered here to solve a crime. The Denver Rescue Mission is distributing 3,000 fliers to encourage tips.
Mayor Wellington Webb, calling the murders a public safety crisis and using emergency powers, ordered the city�s shelters to add more beds to get the homeless off the streets at night.
“In Denver, whether one is living in a shelter or one is living in a palatial home, life is important. It is critical that we find out who murdered these individuals, ” said Mayor Webb.
The police, who faced a similar situation three years ago when three homeless men were killed in a month and a half, have assigned seven homicide detectives to the case, which has been given high priority. FBI assistance has also been sought.
“The fear factor out there is very high. The guys are starting to realize this is not a random thing, ” said Rev. Del Maxfield, president of the Denver Rescue Mission.
Police have little information on the five slayings, which they are treating as separate cases. According to Capt. Tim Leary, the men were savagely beaten, some with weapons and some with fists and feet. Leary said that while there are similarities among the attacks, “they are distinctly dissimilar in some respects.”
Police acknowledge the possibility that a serial killer may be preying on the homeless, but said it is also possible that one person killed some of the men and a a copycat carried out the other slayings. Only one case had witnesses.
Authorities offered no motive for the killings of the men, who were described as having been outside the system and physically frail.
“It�s hard for me to imagine what might motivate this,” said John Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
Nationally, violence against the homeless has reached such a level that some advocates are calling for such attacks to be considered hate crimes. Statistics on violence against the homeless are hard to come by, but a 1994 study by the Coalition for the Homeless in New York found that 90% of the homeless people surveyed had property stolen and 80% had been victims of violent crime. An updated survey is being prepared.
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The most recent victim, a Kenneth Rapp, Jr., 43, whose body was discovered October 22, had been dead for several weeks. His skull was not in one piece.
A fourth man found dead near downtown in September was beaten to death, and police say they�ve begun investigating other reports of assaults on the homeless.
Three other men have been beaten to death since September 7, all of them transients.
Police emphasize that although some similarities exist in the slayings they still are unsure whether they�re related.
“My worry is that this will continue and nothing will be done about it,” said Felecia Mahaffie, clinical supervisor at Samaritan House. “If four successful people were murdered downtown, people would be wondering what to do next. It would be news.”
The bodies of George “Billy” Worth, 62, and Donald Dyer, 51, were discovered September 7 under a loading dock.
The following morning, Melvin Washington, 52, was found unconscious on a sidewalk. He died a week later.
Anchorage, Alaska–Street People Adopt Tactics of Activists (Anchorage Daily News 9/27/99, 8/12/99))
Some of the city�s homeless and street people did something Sunday morning that they had never done before. Borrowing from the traditions of civil rights activists of a generation ago, they put on a march.
Out for anyone and everyone to see, 60 or more of them carried signs saying “Stop Street Violence” and “A Cry for Help Should Not Go Unheard” as they walked downtown. They they held a rally and listened to anti-violence speeches.
“Too many of our friends are getting beat up or have died of violence,” said Alma Mixon, who lives on and off the streets. “We�ve got to be heard. This has got to stop.”
The march was organized by clients at Homeward Bound, a residential program designed to help alcoholics get off the streets. The residents organized the march to speak out louder than ever against what seemed the worst summer ever for violence against street people….
Police and social service workers are still trying to get a clear picture of the violence that caused the outcry at Sunday�s march. Police are investigating two deaths of street people this summer as homicides.
But this summer�s campside stories have been filled with rumors of marauding bands of teenagers who prey on inebriates, especially older ones, with an intensity unknown in past seasons. The stories are the explanations given when street people show up at Bean�s Cafe or Brother Francis Shelter battered and bruised.
“People should stop taking advantage just because we�re having problems with alcohol,” Charles Berry, 49, said while carrying a sign during the march. “I�m having problems with alcohol. I wish I could quit. But it�s not that easy. I�m trying.”
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Police Respond to Fears on Street. Police Urge Homeless to Report Crimes
Two deaths of street people this summer are being investigated as homicides, police said, including that of Annie Mann, 45, found dead behind an abandoned warehouse.
Homeless outreach teams have reported breaking up “numerous fights this year between street people and teens,” says Jim McEnnis, manager of the Community Service Patrol.
On Labor Day weekend in 1998, street dweller Allen Austin, 39, was beaten to death in the woods near the Anchorage Football Stadium. Raymond Smallwood, 21, and Robert Sugar, 19 were accused of beating Austin as part of a string of robberies and attacks.
Jeffersonville, Indiana–Violence Against Homeless People (Interview with Barbara Anderson, Haven House Services Director, 9/11/99)
An incendiary device was thrown through the window of an apartment building in Jeffersonville, Indiana on September 11 causing the deaths of three homeless people, Alan Rumpel, 40, Jennifer Steinberger, 23, and Allen Steinberger, 4 months old, perished in the resulting fire. Three other families (15 people in all), were made homeless again. Three youth (ages 14–19) are prime suspects in this triple murder.
Rapid City, South Dakota–Homeless Men�s Deaths a Mystery in South Dakota. Corpses of American Indians Have Been Found in Rapid Creek (USA Today, 9/8/99)
When the first few bodies turned up in the gurgling trout stream that runs through a park in this city on the edge of the Black Hills, the deaths drew little attention.
Police investigated, but all the evidence indicated that the homeless men had spent their days and nights drinking along Rapid Creek and simply passed out and drowned.
As more men died, however, police officers became suspicious. The deaths now total eight in 16 months, three this year. In typical years, only about one homeless person turns up drowned along the creek.
“There�s just too many of them to say it�s coincidence. But it could be,” Police Chief Tom Hennies says.
Authorities have no witnesses who saw any of the victims go into the creek. There were no bullet holes, stab wounds or evidence of other injuries on the bodies. Police don�t know where most of the men entered the stream.
Investigators do know that six of the eight were American Indians. All but one had been drinking heavily just before they died. Most had blood alcohol levels of at least .25%, or more than 2 1/2 times the .10% level at which drivers are presumed drunk.
The homeless people who live under bridges along the creek say they believe someone is pushing unconscious or helpless drinkers in the water.
Rumors reported to police include allegations that the creek people are being killed by a fellow homeless man, racist skinheads, a motel owner, members of a Satanic cult or a big white man on a bicycle. One report accused a police officer.
Clement Standing Elk is among those who blame racist skinheads. He says the creek people have banded together to chase some of them away.
The homeless and others complain that the police are doing little to investigate the death because most of the victims are Indians.
The two men who lead the task force investigating the deaths say they have asked themselves whether they would do anything differently if the dead men had been affluent whites. Chief Sheriff�s Deputy De Glassgow says he believes the investigation is being conducted the same as if all the victims had been white.
A $4,000 reward has been offered.
Clement Standing Elk believes the deaths have stopped because of the publicity but will resume once the attention dies down. He also rejects the idea that homeless people have been killed by one of their own. “It�s not us doing it,” he says. “It�s not the street people, because we�re family.”
Seattle-
-Case is Third with Teens, Attacks on Homeless (Seattle Times, 8/31/99, 8/19/99, Seattle Post Intelligencer 7/26/99))
The slaying of David Ballenger is the third local case in two years in which teenagers have been accused or convicted of violent crimes against homeless people.
David Ballenger, 46, died without four walls and a roof. He was fatally stabbed 18 times Aug. 9 as he tried to sleep beneath an interstate overpass in North Seattle. Like many homeless people, he lived each day exposed and vulnerable.
While three teenagers have been arrested and charged with murder, law enforcement officials say investigating crimes against the homeless is hard and prosecuting cases can be ever harder.
Three suspects are in custody, Michael Caffee, 19, Shelton Musgrave, 18, and Jay Stewart. They have been charged with second-degree murder.
Prosecutors say Stewart bragged about the killing, telling friends: “Let�s just say there�s one less bum on the face of the Earth.”
In March, 14-year old David Paul Ogden was tried as a juvenile and convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Andras Lapusan, 50, a man in Kinnear Park. After eating and drinking with the man, Ogden stabbed, and slammed him repeatedly struck him with a skateboard, robbed him and stabbed him with a pocket knife.
Lapusan was found dead June 12 in Kinnear Park with a dozen lacerations to his head and many stab wounds to his chest, neck, eyelid and leg.
Ogden, who attended McClure Middle School, was sentenced to juvenile detention until he turns 21.
Seven days after the killing, Seattle homicide detectives got a report that the teen was bragging to his friends that he had beaten and killed a “bum” in Kinnear Park.
Portland, (OR) Three Youths Plead Guilty to Manslaughter, Face Prison in Brutal Beating Death (8/20/99)
Three teens who beat a North Portland transient to death pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter Thursday in exchange for 10-year prison sentences.
Roman Thomas, 17, and brothers Joseph Gann, 19, and Joshua Gann, 17, faced murder charges. However, prosecutors agreed to the manslaughter charges because the three did not intend to kill Grindle and he was alive when they left him. In addition, the teen-agers did not use weapons, and the attack was not prolonged although they severely punched and kicked Grindle. “It was a brutal beating,” said Jim McIntyre, a senior deputy district attorney. He died of internal injuries, including a lacerated liver and kidney, caused by blunt force trauma to his abdomen.
Grindle, 42, lived under a bridge in a railroad cut near North Lombard St.
The teens all apologized. “To the family, I�m sorry for what happened,” Thomas said. “I apologize to the best of my ability, and I wish I could go back and change it.”
Los Angeles–A Police Shooting Death, A Study in Contrasts (Associated Press 11/2/99 & 10/27/99, NY Times 6/5/99, Street Spirit, June �99)
Police Chief Bernard Parks has determined that the officer who shot a mentally ill homeless woman to death after she allegedly lunged at him with a screwdriver used faulty tactics, but did not violate department policy, according to a published report.
While the chief�s reportt voiced administrative disapproval of the tactics, the unidentified sources did not detail the flaws in the action.
Parks� findings mean Larrigan could face discipline over the shooting. Sources told the Los Angeles Times the chief found the action of Larrigan�s partner, Officer Kathy Clark, who drew her weapon but did not fire it, to also be within policy. If Parks� views are adopted, the 29-year-old-officer would have to receive training to improve her tactics.
On November 2, community activists called on the Civilian Police Commission to conduct an independent investigation.
“We really found it to be a paradoc. How can you have a faulty tactic and still have it within policy? It doesn�t make sense, ” said Bob Erlenbusch, director of the Los Angeles Commission to End Hunger & Homelessness.
The Los Angeles Coalition also presented the Commission with 10 recommendations to improve police training, including more time in learning how to recognize mental illnesses, and how to handle mentally ill homeless people.
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On a busy corner in the heart of town, a makeshift memorial sits on the sidewalk, surrounded by candles, two small American flags. At the center is a photograph of a smiling, middle-aged woman, a blowup from a newspaper clipping, whose caption reads, “Margaret Laverne Mitchell, a college-educated ex-bank worker.”
Two weeks ago, Mrs. Mitchell, a 5-foot-1, 100-pound widow whose gradual descent into mental illness had left her living on the streets, was shot to death on this spot by a Los Angeles police officer who had approached her with his partner on bicycle patrol to ask if the shopping cart she was pushing was stolen. Mrs. Mitchell was black and the officer who shot her was Hispanic.
The police say Mrs. Mitchell, 55, brandished a foot-long screwdriver and threatened to kill the officers, until one of them, stumbling as he ducked to avoid her, feared for his safety and fired.
The shooting has not only prompted a Federal civil rights investigation by the local United States Attorney�s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation but also renewed questions about the training and discipline of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Police Chief Bernard Parks, the second black leader in the Los Angeles department�s history, said it did not appear that his officers had “done anything wrong.” He questioned why Mrs. Mitchell�s family had not done more to help her and complained that critics of his department were seeking to exploit the incident for their own ends.
Mrs. Mitchell�s son, Richard, plans to sue the city. He says he has found witnesses who dispute the police account that Mrs. Mitchell was threatening.
According to police reports, the two bicycle patrol officers stopped Mrs. Mitchell to question her about stolen shopping carts in the neighborhood, but she refused to stop and began threatening them and screaming profanities.
They drew their weapons and told her to put down the screwdriver. At that point, Mrs. Mitchell ran about 100 feet down the street with the cart, finally stopping and threatening the officers again, and lunging toward Officer Larrigan, who ducked, stumbled and shot her once in the chest.
But there are at least two witnesses who dispute the police account, saying that they saw nothing in Mrs. Mitchell�s hand and that she never threatened the officers. The police say they have witnesses supporting Officer Larrigan�s assertion that Mrs. Mitchell lunged at him.
Many activists are asking why two police officers couldn�t have found a less lethal way to subdue a 55-year-old woman who was only 5 feet 1 inches tall and weighed 102 pounds.
Los Angles police had recently begun cracking down on homeless people and confiscating their shopping carts. The Los Angeles Catholic Worker had protested this move to criminalize the homeless by purchasing and giving away shopping carts to street people.
Mrs. Mitchell had been on a downward spiral for about 10 years. The death of her father and the family disputes that followed caused her to withdraw, rejecting the help of family members, living in church shelters and eventually, sometime within the last couple of years, ending up homeless and living on the streets.
People who saw Mrs. Mitchell pushing her shopping card every day up and down La Brea, said she was unfailingly polite, never panhandled, kept herself clean, but also kept to herself.
“She never bothered anybody,” said Ralph Glickman, a retired delicatessen counterman.
Chicago–Homeless Man Doused with Flammable Chemical
“On July 14, 1999 Cleotha Mitchell fell asleep on a park bench on the northwest side of Chicago. While he slept, someone doused him with a flammable chemical and set him on fire. If a jogger had not seen him and put out the fire, Cleotha would have surely burned to death. Instead, he will live with scars from third degree burns over 20% of his body and an emotional scar the rest of his life. His only offense was being homeless.
Was what happened to Cleotha Mitchell a hate crime or a prank? It is unquestionably a hate crime. A crime caused by hatred of people who have nothing and are believed to be worthless. Hatred fueled by tensions in a gentrifying city where poor people, particularly poor people of color, clash with middle-class families returning to the city from the suburbs.
Police claim this was an isolated incident, but homeless people say otherwise. They can cite numerous incidents of assault and murder of homeless people as they slept.
The crime also highlights the fact that homelessness is not merely a cold weather problem. Every summer the city closes 770 shelter beds for single adults. Many have no choice but to sleep in the park, where they are extremely vulnerable to assault and susceptible to heat stroke during summer heat waves.
I visited Cleotha Mitchell in the hospital two weeks after the incident. He still has nightmares about waking up on fire. He is afraid to go back to that neighborhood even though his family and his support system are there. The police have visited him once, but he has no idea what is happening with his case. No suspects have been identified.”
(By John Donahue, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Fall 1999 Homeward Bound newsletter)
Richmond (VA)–Mourners Recall Beheading Victim Even After Life on the Street: He Always Had A Gentle Spirit (Richmond Times-Dispatch 3/11/99, 5/9/99)
In the months before his slaying and beheading on March 1, Henry Edward Northington, 39, found a measure of peace and grace among Richmond�s homeless. “We was real close friends,” says 23-year-old Bill Simon, one of the homeless people who spoke at the memorial service.
Police still have no motive or suspect in the slaying which apparently occurred on the James near Riverview Cemetery. The killer or killers then carried Northington�s head nearly a mile, carefully placing it on the footbridge, apparently as some sort of message, police believe.
While the ghastly nature of Northington�s death has some in the gay community fearing that this was a hate crime, many in the homeless community are also wondering if Northington was killed and beheaded because he was a street person.
In the summer of 1996, a 47-year-old Patsy Mitchell sometimes stayed under the Lee Bridge. On July 28, 1996 someone bludgeoned her to death. The case has not been solved.
San Francisco-Beatings of Three Homeless Under a Freeway (San Francisco Examiner, 2/13/99)
On Friday, Feb. 12 three homeless people living under a freeway overpass on Beale were beaten.
John Arnold said the incident began early Friday morning when he and his wife Karen were awakened to calls for help from homeless colleague, Brenda Parks. Parks, he said, was being attacked by three assailants armed with nunchucks and steel rods, and he and his wife responded immediately.
Arnold said two other campers identified the attackers for police, who arrested two men, 18 and 20 years old, and a 28-year-old woman.
“I made it halfway across the street when one of the guys hit me in the forehead,” John Arnold said. “We got beat up pretty good…. My wife�s forehead and back of her head are busted open.”
John Arnold suffered a broken arm in the attack in addition to the gash on his head. Karen Arnold fractured both of her hands. John Arnold said he believed the perpetrators “didn�t like homeless, hated homeless.”
“They didn�t attack us for money,” he said. “They didn�t try to rob us. It was a hate crime.”
1998:
Cape Canaveral, (FL) Man Who Watch Beating Sentence to Seven Years (Florida Today, 11/20/98)
A Cape Canaveral man who watched two teens beat a homeless man to death and then helped rob him was ordered to serve seven years in prison for the crime.
James Marshall, 24, was sentenced to prison for third degree murder and an additional 20 years of probation for robbery.
Marshall did not participate in the actual beating of Michael Kinsey, 37, whose battered body was dumped in a thicket of palmettos after he was killed and robbed April 6, 1997, in Cape Canaveral.
Marshall was the only adult of the four people charged in Kinsey�s death One of the two people accused of actually killing Kinsey, Timothy Storrey, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 37 years in prison for murder and robbery.
San Francisco: Man Held in Attacks of Homeless People; Homeless and Haunted: Recent Attacks Against Street People Call Attention to Attempts to Get Them Out of Tourist Areas (NY Times 11/15/98, 11/11/98, San Francisco Chronicle 11/12/98, 11/11/98)
Three weeks ago, when someone started stalking homeless people here, bending over them as they slept in the alleys and doorways and slashing their throats, a grim joke began making the rounds on the streets: The killer had been hired by the city.
After all, didn�t the mayor call the city�s homeless problem “intractable” and vote to clear the homeless from public places.
“We figured the slasher was the one way to get us off the sidewalks” said Donald Behd, a homeless man slapping his own knee at the humor of it.
Joshua Rudiger, a 21 year old Oakland man was arrested today after a 48-year old homeless man�s throat was slashed as he slept in a park near Chinatown, the fourth such attack in four weeks.
Rudiger told the police he was a vampire who drank his victims� blood and used the blood to scrawl an Asian symbol for death.
Police said they found a bloody knife in his pocket that Rudiger is suspected of using in all four attacks. Police sources said Rudiger admitted responsibility for all four crimes. Police said he fit descriptions given by the victims of two earlier attacks.
On Oct. 16, a sleeping man�s throat was slashed and he was severely injured. Hours later, a homeless man reported that a man had slashed his throat. Two days later, Shirley Dillahunty, 48, was found with her throat slashed. Ms. Dillahunty, who was homeless, had been sleeping on a sidewalk in the Mission District. She died on October 20.
Many people who sleep on the streets said they now feel safer knowing the alleged slasher is behind bars.
In a letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle, a Stefan Goldstone said: “However, any followers of the news cannot be completely surprised by these hate crimes. Research has shown us that violent hate crimes often follow closely on the heels of public and public-sanctioned hate language.
Recent comments by San Francisco Supervisor Amos Brown, Bevan Duffy of the Mayor�s Office on Neighborhood Services, Mayor Willie Brown, S.F.P.D. Captain Dennis Martel, and others, which denigrate and vilify homeless people, must be called out for exactly what they are: hate speech, which must not be welcome in San Francisco or anywhere else.”
Chico, (CA) Homeless Man Dies After Attack. Two Butte Football Players Detained (11/7/98)
A 47-year-old transient died Friday at Enloe Hospital from blunt force injuries suffered late Thursday in what Chico Police described as a savage and senseless beating.
Trevor McDonald Bird, 19, and Dereck Phillips, 19, two members of the Butte College football team (one weighing nearly 300 pounds), were arrested at the scene of the crime.
The man was assaulted and beaten in an alley behind 531 W. Fifth St. shortly before midnight.
The man was beaten about the head and body with a fence board, a five-gallon water jug weighing about 40 pounds, and possibly a spare tire from a parked car nearby. The attack lasted almost five minutes.
Leonard Goldkind, the Butte Co. prosecutor, said he has never seen anyone beaten so badly. “I didn�t even recognize the photos of him from the autopsy,” he said.
“Rage was evident given the severity of the victim�s injuries,” said Chico Detective Voris. “It�s senseless.
The only remark overheard by witnesses was when one of the two football players asked, “Why did you call us punks?”
Witnesses indicated that the victim approached the suspects near Fifth & Hazel streets to panhandle them. It appears it was a chance meeting. The two students had been drinking, but not to the point where officers would have considered them drunk in public. Some insults were exchanged. “We believe the suspects followed him in the alley,” said Voris. They also beat him to death because the victim complained when one of the football players urinated in the location where he had planned to sleep that night. Once in the alley, the transient was attacked.
Larry Currier, his cousin and once homeless, said, “He always told me he loved college kids. Kids gave him food and money. He wasn�t scared of them.”
Currier seemed to point out that not all students were vicious to Brown. He pointed out that many called him friend, “drank beer with him”, offered their condolences after his death, and all seven pallbearers were Chico State students and friends of Brown.
At a memorial vigil for Lloyd Lee Brown, John Wolfe said, “He was a helluva guy. If he had money in his pocket, he�d give it to you. My prayers go with him. He�s in alcohol heaven now.”
A John Ward said that what he wanted out of the coverage surrounding Brown�s death was that people who normally just pass a homeless person by will “look again” and recognize another human being.
Washington, DC Trial Begins in D.C. Slaying of the Good Samaritan (WA Post, 10/29/98)
It was 3 a.m. on 14th St., NW and the Diversite Bar & Grill was letting out. Four young men were stopped at a traffic light when they saw a larger group run across the street and start hitting and kicking a homeless man.
“They were kicking him right there in the middle of the road. We took a right at the end of the block and we decided to see if he was okay,” aid Greg Alexander, a slight, soft-spoken forklift driver.
Other cars passed by as the homeless man was being attacked, but Helm and his friends stopped because they wanted to help, Alexander testified.
The four young men got out of the car. Then the attackers turned on them. Two of them carried knives. Alexander and two of his cousins fled toward the car. Someone threw a rock through the car window. Someone stabbed Alexander in the hand.
Still outside, beyond the reach of the car, a young divinity student from Vienna named Warren Helm stood surrounded by gang members.
When Helm bolted, the gang took off after him, tackled him and killed him, police and witnesses said.
“Warren Helm did what very few people under the circumstances would have done. He came to the rescue of another human being, ” said prosecutor Anthony Asuncion.
Four men are facing first degree murder charges. A fifth defendant is accused of threatening to kill a witness is she told police what happened.
Helms, 28, was a theology student at Virginia Union University in Richmond when he died. He wanted to become a Baptist minister.
Syracuse (NY) City Police Say Teens Beat Homeless Man (Syracuse Post-Standard, 10/8/98)
A resident of a Syracuse homeless shelter was treated at University Hospital Sunday after being assaulted by a group of teen-agers, city police said.
Brandon M. Januszka, 29, of the Oxford Street Inn was walking along the 200 block of Hudson Street at 5:40 p.m. Sunday when he was kicked from behind by one of five or six teen-agers, a witness told police. The others, ages 15 to 18, joined in, kicking Januszka repeatedly in the head.
New York City: Squeegee Man Gives Account of Shooting By Officer (NY Times 6/19/98)
From his hospital bed, Antoine Reid, the squeegee man who the police said was shot by an off-duty police officer in the Bronx on Sunday, said in an interview that the officer flew into a rage and shot him in the chest at point-blank range even after he offered to remove the soap he had poured onto the windshield of the officer�s car.
The shooting has raised new questions about whether the Police Department does enough to control officers with a history of brutality complaints.
Reid, age 38, said that the incident began as he was washing windows at his usual spot on an exit of the Major Deegan Expressway. As he soaped up the window of the car, he said, the driver, identified by the police as Michael W. Meyer, an off-duty police officer– cursed him, got out of his car, grabbed him and then shot him without any provocation.
“He put the gun on my chest and shot it,” Mr. Reid said.
Mr. Reid said that Officer Meyer then attempted to make the shooting seem justified. “He walked, picked up my squeegee and said, �See everybody? He tried to rob me,�” Mr. Reid said.
The officer has been charged with attempted murder.
Los Angeles–Officers Won�t Deny Brutalizing Charges (Los Angeles Sentinel, 5/28/98)
Two California Highway Patrol officers pleaded no contest last week to charges they picked up a homeless black man for washing car windows in Culver City and abandoned him 25 miles away after dousing him with pepper spray.
Termujin Jones, 32, who is black, and Wade Edward Allen, 26, entered their pleas to false imprisonment and terrorist threat charges. Jones also admitted to an additional count of illegally using pepper spray on the transient.
The officers, who face sentencing on July 3, could get up to four years in prison.
Washington, DC Guard Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter. Homeless Man Walking Near Pentagon Was Killed in Shooting (Washington Post, 3/20/98, 5/2/98)
John E. Bell, Jr., a Pentagon security guard pleaded guilty yesterday to accidentally shooting and killing a homeless man walking near his guard station, and tearfully apologizing to the victim�s relatives.
The family of the victim, Kenneth Allan Grant, 38, did not attend the hearing, however. Grant�s brother said in an interview that he continues to believe the shooting was deliberate.
“He shouldn�t have lost his life,” said Carl Grant. “He was like road kill. Someone drove by and just found him lying in the street.”
Grant had been homeless since 1979 since being discharged from the Army in 1979. Family members said he developed schizophrenia after leaving the service and spent years bouncing in and out of St. Elizabeth�s Hospital.
Carl Grant said his brother was arrested several times for vagrancy and loitering at Reagan National Airport, but that he was never in any serious trouble with the law and stayed away from drugs.
Bell pleaded guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in Grant�s death. He faces up to six years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised probation.
Bell was guarding a heating and cooling facility March 7, working in a trailer near the Pentagon. Prosecutors say he removed a .38-caliber revolver from the drawer, held the weapon at eye level with the barrel pointing toward the window and then accidentally discharged the weapon. The guard was stationed about 20 yards from where the man�s body was found.
The bullet crashed through the window of the trailer and passed through a chain-linked fence before striking Grant in the heart. His body was discovered a short time later by a passing motorist who called 911.
After firing the weapon, Bell placed the gun and spent cartridge back in a drawer, the prosecutor said. He did not immediately contact law enforcement or his supervisors about discharging the weapon, nor did he go outside the trailer to see if anyone had been harmed.
“That�s the most disturbing part of the case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert C. Chestnut said. “He stayed in the shack and did nothing.”
Grant�s brother, Carl, said that his family has hired a lawyer and is considering legal action against the private security firm.
“We still believe our brother was shot intentionally, but we can�t prove that. The only people who were there were Bell and my brother. He�s dead, and he can�t tell us what happened.”
Miami–Officer Convicted in Cover-up (Miami Herald, 2/3/98)
He was accused of lying in Miami gun-planting incident after shooting an unarmed homeless man.
A Miami police officer caught in a gun-planting scandal was convicted Monday of official misconduct for his part in a police shooting cover-up. Officer Rolando Jacobo, a 14-year veteran of the force and a member of the street narcotics unit, was found guilty of the third degree felony.
Prosecutors said Jacobo played a key role in a staged crime scene after an unarmed homeless man was shot in Coconut Grove last June 26. Jacobo wrote in his police report that 44-year-old Daniel Hoban, the homeless man, had pointed a gun at Jacobo and his partner, Jorge Castello.
Castello shot Hoban, hitting him once in the leg.
Hoban insisted he had no gun, and witnesses said they didn�t see a gun at the scene for the first 20 minutes after the 8 p.m. shooting.
Prosecutors told jurors in closing arguments Monday that the gun was planted at the scene after officers realized Hoban had actually been holding a radio, not a gun.
“That man (Jacobo) betrayed his oath and disgraced his shield,” said Assistant State Attorney Reid Rubin.
Clearwater (FL) Teenagers Attack Homeless for Fun (Homeless Grapevine, #28, Cleveland)
Recently there has been a rash of attacks aimed at homeless people in and around the Clearwater, Florida area. The most recent victim is a 42-year-old who was attacked in a local park.
Richard McCormick�s injuries amounted to 10 staples to close a gash in his head. Teenagers in numbers of four to eight jump from out of cars and attack their victims. These attacks are forms of amusement for the teenagers in the area.
1997:
Greenfield (MA) Homeless Man Beaten (The Recorder, 8/22/97)
An 11-year-old Greenfield boy will be summoned to court within a week to face charges of beating a homeless man with a crutch.
The boy, who was not named by police because of his age, will be charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon for the Aug. 9 attack on Darryl Wasso, who lives on the streets of Greenfield.
According to police, the beating of Wasso was the culmination of a campaign of harassment and terror that has been carried out against the towns� homeless population by a small group of wayward youths.
“These kids have been hassling local homeless people for weeks. This isn�t the first time this guy�s been hit, they stole a backpack from him a couple weeks ago,” said Officer Scott Hartzler.
Hartzler said that the most recent attack may have been in retaliation for the act of another homeless man who tried to defend himself against a threatened assault by chasing his assailants away with a knife.
“It may have been a case of mistaken identity. He said they kept calling him (by another name) as they beat him. From what I understand he was asleep when they started hitting him, the guy woke up, they found they were beating the wrong guy and they didn�t care. They just kept right on beating him,” Hartzler said.
The officer said he believes that some of the older youths in the group may be using their harassment of homeless people to gain some strange measure of social status among their peers.
“I think that the parents of these kids are the ones truly responsible,” Hartzler said.
Seattle–Boys Charged with Setting Homeless Man on Fire (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5/17/97, Seattle Times, 9/23/97)
Abdirizak Ahmed, 38, was slumbering in a bus shelter outside a Pioneer Square homeless shelter across from the King County Courthouse at about 2:30 a.m. when five youths roaming the streets decided to taunt him.
“Let�s go mess with the drunk dude,” one 12 year old boy said to the other.
The cruelty escalated from slapping to tossing matches on the homeless man, who remained asleep. Finally, one boy suggested lighting a newspaper under him, they added more papers to the flames until his clothes caught fire. One boy tried to set Ahmed�s hair on fire.
As the youths laughed, Ahmed awoke screaming, his jacket engulfed in flames and some of his skin peeling away.
Witnesses say the juveniles laughed as Ahmed screamed, and none of the youths helped him as he tried to douse the flames.
Ahmed suffered third-degree burns over 15% of his body, was listed in satisfactory condition yesterday in Harborview Medical Center.
Assault charges were filed against two boys, 12 and 13.
One was sentenced to two years in detention; the other, to a year and four months.
In a letter to the editor by a Jon Gould (Seattle Times, 5/28/97) he wrote that the stage was set for such a crime when city officials several years earlier evicted homeless men and women from the dirt beside the City Building. City officials called their behavior “uncivilized.”
Gould wrote, “With negative images and second-class treatment of homeless people commonplace, we should not be surprised that two immature youths decide to perpetrate unspeakable violence against an unsheltered, defenseless homeless man.”
On September 22, 1997 the two juvenile boys accused of setting a man on fire as he slept in a bus-shelter were found guilty of first degree assault by King County Superior Court Judge Joan Dubuque.
Ahmed still does not have full use of his arms.
New York City–Port Authority Cops Nab Teens in Homeless Beating (Newsday 4/27/97)
Alerted by a cleaning woman, Port Authority police officers nabbed a gang of teens yesterday as they beat a homeless man at the Authority�s Manhattan bus terminal, a spokesman said.
Eight Brooklyn teens, ranging in age from 12 to 18, were charged in the 2:45 a.m. attack on Tyrone Gilliard, 31.
Gilliard was treated at St. Clare�s Hospital for a cut to his head and then released.
Three of the youths, ages 12, 13 and 14, were issued desk appearance tickets and released to the custody of their parents. The other five, ages 16 to 18, were charged as adults with second-degree gang assault and possession of a dangerous instrument.
Dorchester, (MA) Dorchester Teens Held in Stabbing Murder of Homeless Man (Boston Herald, 3/3/97)
Two 17-year-old youths, Robert Leaston and Liquarry Jefferson, face arraignment with the street stabbing of a 35-year-old homeless man two weeks ago.
The pair is charged with killing Marshall Garrett, 35, on Feb. 20.
The motive for the killing remained unclear yesterday, police said, adding the victim had no known address.
San Francisco (S.F. Examiner 11/19/98) Josh Brandon of the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health said that 22 homeless people were victims of homicide from 1995-1997 and that “the victims were targeted because they were homeless.”
1996:
Waltham, (MA) Waltham Youth Denies Murder (Boston Globe, 11/9/96)
A Waltham teen-ager, charged with the murder of a homeless man, was held without bail after pleading not guilty yesterday in Waltham District Court.
Edward Andrews III, 17, was charged with the Nov. 6 killing of James Duffy, 36, who was found dead of blunt head trauma by the railroad tracks near Elm Street. Police said two witnesses reported seeing Andrews leave the scene the night before Duffy�s body was found. Andrews turned himself on Nov. 7.
Glendale (CA) Youths Appeared to Enjoy Killing Homeless Man Police Say the Attack May Have Been Random and for Thrills(Los
Angeles Times 7/24/96)
Four young men appeared to celebrate their fatal stabbing of a 35-year-old homeless man by giving each other “high fives” as he lay dying on a sidewalk, Glendale police say.
With no apparent motive for the Friday killing, police theorized the four assailants may have beaten, kicked and stabbed John Vice to death for the fun of it.
“It looked like they were celebrating, and were getting joy out of killing this man,” said Det. Dennis Smith.
The incident began shortly before 2:30 a.m. Friday when witnesses say four males with close-cropped hair and dressed in gang attire surround Vice on a sidewalk in the 500 block of East Garfield, police said.
Witnesses told police the four battered Vice and shoved him back and forth between them. “He was picked up once after he fell down and beaten some more,” Smith said.
After Vice dropped to the ground for the last time, the four suspects slapped hands and ran off.
Vice, who suffered multiple stab wounds and bruises, was pronounced dead a short time later.
“He (Vice) was a nice guy,” said Mike Baray, an employee of the Central Library where Vice spent much time. “He kept to himself. He did drink a lot, but he was well-mannered.”
Another formerly homeless man, Eugene “Tiny” Stroko, said that Vice was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Houston–Dignity in Death/Woman Seeking a Proper Burial for Homeless Man (Houston Chronicle 4/29/96)
To most people, he was just another of the thousands of nameless, faceless, homeless people living on the city�s streets, pushing shopping carts and collecting cans.
But when 37-year-old Jorge Hernandez-Gutierrez was found beaten to death recently, one woman remembered his polite gratefulness when she once gave him food.
For that reason, Jane Block, a Houston real estate agent, is working to see that the slain homeless man has something in death that he had little of in life. Dignity. Block has established a fund to help pay for his funeral. Any money left over would be donated to one of the city�s charities that serve the homeless.
Hernandez-Gutierrez was found lying in a pool of blood April 22 near an abandoned service station where he lived in the 2100 block of Shepherd. His body was found just a few hours after another homeless man had been attacked with a two-by-four in the area by two teens.
One of the teens was caught by the police for that attack, but the other managed to avoid arrest. However, the victim did not want to file charges and police were forced to release the teen.
When the body of Hernandez-Gutierrez was found a few hours later, police took the teen into custody again but he was released without charges being filed.
No arrests have been made in the case.
On Sunday, two shopping carts stood in front of the abandoned building. Yellow crime tape fluttered in the breeze amid the cracked and garbage-strewn concrete that was Hernandez-Gutierrez�s home.
According to police, criminals who prey on the homeless are not often caught. Identifying the victim is often difficult, and random crimes where the victim and perpetrator do not know each other – often the case with the homeless – are much more difficult to solve.
Redlands (CA)
Alleged Skinhead held in Brutal Attack on Man (San Bernardino Co. Sun, 3/15/96)
A 21 year-old Rialto man is accused of attempting to murder a transient.
A purported member of a local skinhead group was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of brutally beating a homeless man Saturday in what police are calling a hate crime.
Quincy Winston Adams, 21, of Riallo was held for investigation for the attempted murder of Jerry Robert Jordan who was found bleeding and badly beaten behind a local business Sunday morning.
Jordan, 60, was in critical condition and on life support Thursday, police said.
He suffered major head trauma with multiple fractures to the right side of his head and face.
Several of his ribs were also broken.
Detective Mark Hardy said he has heard of cases in other cities where skinheads committed crimes against homeless people or others they deemed a drain on society, such as welfare and food stamp recipients.
Carl Smith, 52, who was homeless until recently, said he was sleeping by himself in the bathroom at the park about three months ago when he was attacked by two men he said were skinheads. Smith said one of the men beat him with a club in his back and ribs and then ran off.
“My glasses and wallet were right there and they didn�t take it,” he said. “I think they just wanted to be nasty.”
1995:
Phoenix,–Arizona Republic 9/5/99)
Eddie Ramos, 41, says that he usually tries to find a spot early in the evening and lay low through the night. “A person walking on the street around here after 10 o�clock is taking a risk,” he said, lifting his right arm a few inches as evidence.
The arm is in a cast. It was broken by two youths with sticks who stole his eyeglasses and other property, Ramos said.
Crime against homeless victims is one reason the concentration of homeless in the area from Ninth to 12th avenues has declined in the past few years, said Louisa Stark, executive director of Community Housing Partnership.
New York City–When Boredom Turns to Murder: Youths� Vicious Attack Echoes a Neighborhood�s Despair (NY Times, 8/15/95. USA Today, 8/4/95, WA Times, 8/4/95))
Lawrence Gates spent his 16th birthday in jail early this month, accused with four other youths of burning a homeless man alive.
The teen-ager crossed paths with the 38-year-old man, Albert Jackson, in Mount Morris Park in Harlem one night in May. By day, the leafy retreat is filled with the squeals of children on swing sets and in the aquamarine pool. But at night, the park becomes the shadowy domain of homeless people who sleep on dark-green benches and neighborhood youths who cruise the knolls in “crews,” emboldened by their large numbers.
In the early morning hours of May 9, the police say, Mr. Gates and his four friends, who range in age from 12 to 19, attacked Mr. Jackson as he slept on a bench.
Mr. Gates and four neighborhood friends rousted awake Mr. Jackson kicking and punching him before Mr. Gates poured lighter fluid on the man�s socks and set him ablaze, the police said. The youths became scared as the fire swept out of control, and ran when the man cried out.
When arrested on Aug. 2, Lawrence, who, like the others, confessed–was accused of dousing him with lighter fluid and setting him fatally ablaze with a cigarette lighter.
Mr. Jackson, who was found burned over 75% of his body, was buried at Potter�s Field, the city cemetery. No one claimed his body, and the authorities found nothing among his few possessions, which included a city welfare card, that shed any light on the troubled life that intersected so finally with the troubled lives of the youths.
The youths also confessed to beating another homeless man unconscious six days earlier. They hit another man on the head with a piece of cement, nearly killing him.
“They just did this for kicks,” said Assistant Chief Detective John J. Hill.
The park bench where Mr. Jackson was killed now has a fresh coat of green paint. The man, described by other homeless men as fragile and easy going, lies now in an anonymous grave in Potter�s Field.
“He didn�t bother anybody,” said Alvin Burrison, an unemployed 33-year-old who said that he, too, was confronted by the youths on the same night that Mr. Jackson died, but fled the attackers.
“That night there was a bunch of sabotage going on, kicking over garbage cans, throwing bottles,” he said. “They came from all angles. They played games with him, throwing him up for grabs. It was totally senseless. It was a bunch of gremlins.”
The press reports that the police blame this fatal act of incendiarism on boredom.
Chicago–Suit Filed in Fatal Shooting of Homeless Man (USA Today,
8/2/95, Chicago Tribune, 5/10/96,7/18/96)
Police Officer Gregory Becker was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a homeless man, who wanted to wash Becker�s car windows for money. The incident led to an argument, police say.
The family of Joseph Gould, the homeless man who was fatally shot last year, filed suit against the City of Chicago and Gregory Becker, the Chicago police officer involve in the shooting that created an uproar among homeless advocates. The suit accuses Becker of assaulting Gould and by fleeing after it was apparent that Gould had been shot during a struggle on July 30, 1995.
Santa Cruz (CA)
Santa Cruz Man Gets 8 Years for Beatings (S.F. Chronicle, 7/6/95)
A 20 year old Santa Cruz man was sentenced to eight years in prison this week for his role in two savage attacks that targeted homeless people.
The beatings left several people injured and sent one man to the hospital with head wounds that required 150 stitches to close. The most severely injured victim, asleep when he was attacked, was beaten with pipes, fists and an aluminum baseball bat with a jagged edge, police said.
Gayle�s 18 year old brother, David, and four other friends, also were convicted in the attacks and sentenced last month.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly called the incident one of the most chilling that he had ever seen and said the stiff sentences were intended to send a message to skinheads that violence would land them in prison.
District Attorney Christine McGuire said the swift arrest and convictions of Gayle and their friends have brought an end to a rash of beatings that terrified Santa Cruz street people earlier this year.
Annapolis, MD–Daughter Still Seeks Justice in Killing of Homeless Man in Maryland (WA. Post 6/12/95)
The daughter of Archie Baldwin, a homeless veteran who died in 1992 after a group of Annapolis men kicked him, threw pieces of concrete on him, and soaked him with beer and urine, is still pursuing justice for her father�s tormentors.
According to testimony at their trial, Adam Schlossman and Theodore Reshetiloff had been partying at home in west Annapolis that evening in July 1992, when they went behind the house, aroused the 63-year-old Baldwin from a stupor, poured beer on him, knocked him down and pushed him into a deep ravine. The next day, when the men went back into the ravine, they found Baldwin dead and buried him that night, according to trial testimony.
1994
Houston-Three Teens, Ages 13, 15 & 16, face murder chargesin the death of James Griffin, 50, a homeless man who was stabbed 10 times. Officials say it was an incident of “bum bashing.” (Houston Chronicle, 7/26/94, USA Today, 7/25/94)
The beating and stabbing death of a homeless man in northwest Harris County last week was one of the rare times when violence against the homeless has made headlines.
In the street world of alcoholics, hustlers, the down-and-out and the mentally ill, crime is seldom reported and difficult to investigate.
“Even when you get a report, how do you work it?” Harris Co. homicide Sgt. John Denholm said. “You don�t have a phone number or an address… Most of these people are intoxicated or on dope, the kind who take their licks and go on. I�m sure it�s greatly under-reported.”
James Griffin, 50, took his licks and then some. Officers said he was beaten with sticks, then stabbed at least 10 times, once so severely it severed his spinal cord.
Griffin�s killing was the first slaying of a homeless person in the unincorporated areas of Harris County in more than two years.
Sgt. Denholm did not recall any reported incidents of serious, nonfatal violence against the homeless. He acknowledged, though, that the relationship between law enforcement authorities and street people has never been very good.
“They (homeless people) say when they�re out and about they get jacked up (harassed) by the cops, so they just avoid them,” he said.
The only published report of “bum bashing” in the last year was committed by officers themselves. Two Harris County Sheriff�s Department officers were relieved of duty after two homeless men alleged the deputies attacked, beat and shot at one of them…. The homeless men said they were only asking for a handout.
About a half-dozen homeless people were slain in Houston in the last year, according to newspaper reports. Motives ranged from drugs to arguments to unknown.
Houston police Sergeant Tom Murray could find only one case in the last year that may have been “bum bashing.” –a homeless man sleeping downtown was awakened by three men beating him for no apparent reason. “I don�t see it (bum bashing) as a problem,” Murray said.
Fred Karnas, Jr., director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said public statements “about the lack of value of homeless people can prompt violence against them.”
Houston�s homeless readily tell tales of violence, of youths beating them for no apparent reason, of being rousted from their sleep by kicks from passers-by.
“I don�t know why they beat me,” said homeless man Bob Lewis, 60, of an attack by several men downtown two weeks ago. Asked if he reported the assault to police, Lewis shrugged and said, “It wouldn�t do any good.”
Tulsa, OK–Teen Charged With Murder (Tulsa World, 1/4/94)
A Tulsa teen allegedly killed a homeless man Friday after he became angry because the victim was still panhandling in an area where the suspect had given him $5 a week before, authorities said.
Melvin Eugene Collins, 19, was charged with first-degree murder.
Police allege Collins shot Anthony Doyle Dumas, 39, once in the chest with a .22-caliber rifle as the victim stood near Denver Avenue and Edison Street.
Collins had given Dumas $5 a week before at the same location, said Sgt. Steve Emons.
“He (Dumas) said he needed $5 for gas to get to Sand Springs,” Emons said.
At 8:30 p.m. Friday, police told Dumas to leave the area after he was seen panhandling in the street, Emons said.
But Dumas returned about 10 p.m. That�s when Collins met him again, Emons said.
“Collins came back and said he wanted his money back,” Emons said. “That�s when he became upset.”
“For $5, this guy could go for life to the penitentiary,” Emons said.
Dumas had worked as a volunteer distributing supplies for the Tulsa Project for the Homeless.
1993
New York City–Youths Injure Two Sleeping Homeless Men (New York Times 12/4/93)
A group of youths set fire to a cardboard box in which a homeless man was sleeping in Riverside Park yesterday morning, giving him burns on one hand, and they struck another homeless man in the face with a bottle. Advocates for the homeless called the incident just the latest gruesome reminder of a rising tide of violence against the homeless by young people who view them as less than human.
Six teen-agers, who the police said were so brazen that they did not leave the scene after attacking the men, were arrested.
Carnell Cawell, the man who was burned, knows about hardship and cruelty after four years living on the streets of the Upper West Side, but he said he could not fathom the motivation of his attackers.
“They weren�t raised right or they don�t know better or they don�t care about a human being. I hope they don�t live long enough so this happens to them or their kids,” said Cawell.
“I just fear that for so many teenagers, seeing homeless people on the street is something they�ve always know, and they see them as nothing more than trash,” said Mary Brosnahan, director of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City.
She added that many of the attackers are themselves poor, their families perhaps teetering on the edge of homelessness.
“It�s almost as though these kids are seeing a glimpse of their own future, and they�re lashing out violently against it,” she said.
San Francisco–Homeless Man Set Ablaze (San Francisco Examiner, 11/25/93, Associated Press 11/17/93, USA Today, 11/17/93, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/93, Associated Press, 11/24/93))
Five people doused a man sleeping in a doorway with rubbing alcohol and set him on fire, police said. The assailants were labeled as “street thugs” by the police.
It was about 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 16, witnesses told police, when the three suspects came upon McCormick. He was soundly sleeping, huddled in a tattered sleeping bag on the sidewalk….
“They (the suspects) are well known in the Tenderloin,” said Inspector Bill Canning. “They have a reputation of being troublemakers, … who regularly beat up on people unable to defend themselves. One person described them to be “cowards� who do things (to people) only in a pack.”
Witnesses said that the three of them surrounded McCormick. They were talking to each other, and laughing, laughing loud. They were seen pouring something on the victim. McCormick
The motive of the three youths who –said to be laughing loudly as they did it — was a simple one, according to investigators: They wondered whether the fire would wake him up. “That�s it. They were curious, ” said Canning. “That�s all that it was about. Curiosity.”
Dennis McCormick, 47, was listed in critical condition Wednesday at St. Francis Memorial Hospital with second and third degree burns over 30% of his body.
He was set on fire early Tuesday. His attackers, who ranged from 18 to 25, then fled.
Mayor Jordan issued a $10,000 reward.
The Coalition on Homelessness blamed Mayor Jordan�s recent crackdown on vagrants for creating an atmosphere for such a crime.
Three teens suspected of setting afire a homeless man while he slept in the doorway of an apartment building were in custody, charged with the crimes of willful, premeditated attempted murder, torture, aggravated mayhem and felonious assault. The maximum possible penalty each faces is life imprisonment. Each of the suspects admitted to taking part in the torching incident.
Inspector Canning said the case was not hard to solve. “We get lots of cases in the Tenderloin…. It�s a high crime area, especially at night. Most times, people who�ve witnessed the crime, who could help us solve it and make an arrest, just won�t talk.”
“But this time it was very different. Almost everybody who was on the street that night -and there were lots of them- who saw what happened (to McCormick) and knew who�d done it, talked to us,” Canning continued. “In some instances, we didn�t have to find them, they found us. They called us up to tell what they knew.”
The victim�s brother, Clive McCormick of Colorado said that Dennis had been homeless off and on for many years. “I know one thing, Dennis didn�t deserve to suffer what those punks did to him. There�s no punishment that will equal what they did to my brother.”
Washington, DC–Caustic Liquid Poured on Man Sleeping Outside NW Church (Washington Post, 7/2/93)
Johnny Sterling, a 45-year-old homeless man who sought refuge outside the Church of the Pilgrim in Dupont Circle was doused with acid or lye early yesterday morning, leaving him with severe burns on his face, throat and hands, authorities said.
New York City-Torched For Fun: Laughing Teens Set Man Afire on the Subway (New York Daily News, 2/22/93, New York Times, 2/22/93, Associated Press, 2/22/93)
It was all a joke to them.
“Look, look, he�s still asleep,” one of the youths gig
Strange People Of Politics of the Female Species 