Unprovoked beatings of homeless soaring

NF Reporter · 04-08-2007, 05:44 PM

AP - It was a balmy night, the sort that brings the homeless out from the shelters, when the police were summoned to America Street. On the driveway of a condo, just a few paces from the gutter, lay a man. A dying man.

Full Story...

waltky · 08-10-2008, 12:27 AM

Rip-off artists use the homeless...

Alleged Scheme Involved Homeless
August 9, 2008 — An investigation into what the authorities say was a scheme that used homeless people to bilk tens of millions of dollars from federal and state health insurance programs began four years ago with a tip from a rescue mission employee.

Quote:

The employee, Scott Johnson, who works for the Union Rescue Mission in the heart of Skid Row, said he had noticed vans and cars loading up homeless people. “Sometimes they were so full of people that they put people in the trunks of cars,” Mr. Johnson said Thursday as he passed out bottles of water to the homeless. “I wondered what was going on, so I called the state authorities.” Mr. Johnson said security cameras on the mission building captured what he initially thought were ambulances illegally discarding patients.

His tip in 2004, and those recordings, prompted state and local officials to investigate. In October 2006, Los Angeles police officers videotaped an ambulance “dumping” five homeless patients. They later determined that the patients had been recruited as “human pawns in a scheme by hospitals, doctors, ambulance companies and others to defraud” health insurance programs, according to the city attorney’s complaint.

And on Wednesday, federal agents raided three private for-profit hospitals — Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, City of Angels Medical Center, and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center in Orange County — in connection with an alleged fraud scheme involving federal Medicaid and state Medi-Cal health insurance programs. Agents arrested Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, owner and chief executive of City of Angels Medical Center, and Estill Mitts, who is accused of recruiting patients from his Skid Row storefront church, the 7th Street Christian Day Center. Mr. Mitts posted $25,000 bond and is confined to his home. Dr. Sabaratnam posted $700,000 bail Thursday night.

More http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/us...ss.html?ref=us

waltky · 09-19-2008, 11:43 PM

Hope they get the maximum sentence...

Fla. Men Guilty In Homeless Beating Death
Sept. 19, 2008 - 2 Fla. Men, Who Were Teens When They Assaulted Victim, Found Guilty Of 2nd Degree Murder

Quote:

A jury found two South Florida men guilty on Friday of fatally beating a homeless man with a baseball bat and viciously attacking two others. Surveillance video of the 2006 rampage captured Brian Hooks, 21, and Thomas Daugherty, 19, repeatedly hitting one of the victims, causing national outrage among the homeless community. Hooks and Daugherty were found guilty of second-degree murder as well as two counts each of attempted second-degree murder with a weapon for beating two other homeless men.

Prosecutors said Norris Gaynor, 45, was sleeping on a park bench when the men, who were then teens, beat him to death. Prosecutors said Hooks and Daugherty were drunk that night, concealed the bats in their pants and then hide before sneaking up on their victims. The surveillance footage shows a surviving victim desperately trying to cover his body from numerous blows. Defense attorneys had argued the teens never intended to kill Gaynor and urged the jury to consider a lesser charge of third-degree felony murder.

They also tried to cast doubt on earlier testimony from William Ammons, 21, who pleaded guilty in May to felony murder and aggravated assault in the beatings. They said Ammons had a "biased interest to fabricate facts in the case to save" himself and has admitted lying to police 80 times. Ammons will face between 10 and 20 years in prison. He is awaiting sentencing.

Jacques Pierre, 61, was assaulted first in the attack captured on video. Ammons confessed to hitting a third man, 51-year-old Raymond Perez, with a plastic sword and admitted that he fired shots from a paintball gun at Gaynor. A prosecutor said Ammons did not hit anyone with a baseball bat or other deadly weapon, a key factor in his plea to lesser charges.

Fla. Men Guilty In Homeless Beating Death, 2 Fla. Men, Who Were Teens When They Assaulted Victim, Found Guilty Of 2nd Degree Murder - CBS News

JJJ · 09-26-2008, 03:27 PM

There have been a series of these stories recently. If I am not mistaken, they really began to escalate after Katrina in New Orleans.

waltky · 10-11-2008, 04:23 AM

Sadistic...

Homeless man dies after being set ablaze
11 Oct.`08 Severe burns kill 'poor wretch' who was chased and doused with gasoline

Quote:

A homeless man died after being doused with gasoline and set on fire on a street where he had lived for many years and was a familiar face to residents of Koreatown, police and local merchants said Friday. Police were called to Third Street west of downtown Thursday evening and found the man, who was pronounced dead at a hospital. A man in his 20s was seen throwing gasoline on the man, chasing him, throwing more on him and running from the scene, said Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. Scorch marks stained a wall Friday where the man was burned.

The burning horrified even officers who routinely witness violent crimes, Diaz said. "To murder somebody who's probably suffering from mental illness issues and not bothering anyone — just a poor wretch on the street — you've got to be a soulless nitwit to do something like this," he said. The victim remained unidentified, and coroner's investigators might have to rely on fingerprints, Diaz said. Investigators canvassed the neighborhood Friday looking for evidence, witnesses and information about the victim.

Shopkeepers said the man was a fixture in the dense residential neighborhood at the northern edge of Koreatown, and residents were shocked to hear about his violent death. Every day, the man drank a Dr Pepper, ate a bag of chips and smoked cigarettes, said Young Kim, who owns a nearby dry cleaner.

'He didn't deserve this'

waltky · 11-03-2008, 01:28 AM

Violence against homeless...

Homeless massacred in shooting spree
November 03, 2008 * Five homeless people found dead * All had been shot under major highways * Police tipped off by an anonymous caller

Quote:

FIVE homeless people - three men and two women - were found shot dead today in Los Angeles area, a police spokesman said. The five bodies were found under two major highways north of Long Beach, 50km south of Los Angeles, said police sergeant Dina Zapalski. She said police were alerted to the apparent murder victims by an anonymous caller.

She offered no additional details about the grisly discovery. "There's two female adults and three male adults,'' said Los Angeles County Coroner's Office Assistant Chief Ed Winter. "All of the deceased appeared to have been shot, and we are conducting an investigation into their identity,'' he said, adding there were "bits and pieces of information'' that provided some clues.

Several homeless people have been attacked these past few months in the Los Angeles region, a city of 10 million inhabitants where some 73,000 homeless people are estimated to be living. In September, a homeless person was doused with gasoline and set alight until he burned to death. In July 2007, three teenagers were arrested for allegedly attacking several homeless persons and posting footage of the attacks on the internet.

Homeless massacred in shooting spree | World News | News.com.au