Observations Among the Los Angeles Homeless Horde 2020-2022
“Virtue dies, vices triumph, honesty perishes, pity is stifled, avarice pervades, confusion overwhelms, order vanishes.” The Tragic Account of the Miserable State of the Realm of France the year 1364
I have spent the last two years documenting the rise of the homeless in Los Angeles. In that short period of time, the homeless population in Long Beach, CA (my hometown) has grown by over 67%. The influx of homeless has brought death and terror. The neighborhood has gone to hell. My interactions with the homeless are proving much more dangerous. I am paranoid about every encounter. People on meth are unpredictable, attack unprovoked, and often carry weapons.
A mentally disturbed homeless woman high on meth and naked on the beach just threatened to kill my wife called her a “beaner,” and punched her in the face. (I will have much more on this in a later article). The tweaker had a knife in her possession when she made the death threat against my wife. In the last year, two more homeless freaks masturbated on the beach in my wife’s presence. I have been sucker punched in the face, had my car window smashed twice, and the golf clubs that I had owned since 6th grade stolen out of my trunk.
I feel helpless to protect my family. Everything that happens in LA makes its way east to the battleground states. It’s only a matter of time before you or someone you love is victimized by a tweaker or someone enabled by the COVID crime wave.
My elderly neighbor just had a metal pipe smashed upside his head. He was Facetiming his wife, a homeless person mistakenly thought he was filming him, walked up, and just smashed him in the head with a metal pipe. It was traumatic to see a 70-year-old man bleeding uncontrollably. The fact that his condo costs over $1.4 million was not lost on me.
On September 10, 2022, 28-year-old Long Beach resident Christopher Finley was murdered outside the historic LBGTQ bar, the Mineshaft on East Broadway in Long Beach. According to the LB Post article, Finley and his friend had just exited the Mineshaft around 11 pm when a “third man rode by on a bicycle.” According to police, Finley and his friend were trying to get the man to move along on the narrow sidewalk. Something escalated and Finley was murdered. Whether his murderer was mentally ill or someone enabled by the crime wave is still unknown.
My first substack newsletter “The Origins of the Los Angeles Homeless Hoard” dives into the reasons for the exponential rise in the homeless and the surge in random attacks and murders. This article delves into my family’s personal experiences in dealing with the homeless since the COVID lockdowns.
June2021-April 2022-The Lady with the Suitcases
On the corner of Broadway and Pacific Avenue in Downtown, Long Beach you will always find 4-suitcases. At first glance, the suitcases appear to belong to a tourist waiting on a ride to the airport. The suitcases are shuffled all day long to different parts of the street corner.
The owner of the suitcases is a homeless black woman around 45 years old. She has long blonde hair and can always be seen brushing it, while she mutters to herself. Oftentimes, I hear her cursing at those casually walking by. I keep a safe distance. Sometimes, she screams at the top of her lungs. I feel like she could snap at any moment. However, there is something that draws me to her.
Sometimes the lady with the suitcases quotes scripture. I saw her charge a cell phone. One time, I watched, stunned as she pulled out a fresh cigarette from a box.
Most of the homeless forage for cigarettes. You will find them gazing into the ground picking up cigarette butts like possessed pecking birds. Not the lady with the suitcases, she is the homeless diva. She lives in the doorway to a new condo building. A two-bedroom unit in the building where she sleeps outside costs around $4,000.00. The building has every 21st Century convenience, it even has three TRX dangling in the workout room about 10-yards from where the lady lives on a public sidewalk.
When I informed my wife about the lady with the suitcases, she was instantly drawn to her too. She sensed something deep about this homeless woman. How did she remain in the same spot for so long? How had no one ever stolen her suitcases? Every day that we passed, we observed her. We never saw trash spewing on the sidewalk near her little doorway. I even gave her $10.00 one morning as we stood waiting for the same traffic light. I was pleased that she was receptive to my courtesy.
We were convinced that the lady with the suitcases was not someone on methamphetamine but a woman suffering from mental health. Whether she had a support system, family, or people that missed her, we could not say. Whatever the circumstances, we reasoned that she was a really tough woman to hold down the same spot for so long. She was a survivor. We both respected that.
Holding onto your turf is a medieval mindset. Just a few blocks away, another homeless black man was stabbed in the back on the sidewalk off Pine and Third Avenue outside Chase Bank. My law enforcement contacts said that another homeless man stabbed him because they wanted to occupy his panhandling turf.
I still see the scar on his back on hot days when he roams around with his shirt off. I have witnessed the deranged man smoke meth, suffer withdrawal symptoms, and sleep in his own urine. One day my wife and I even saw his exposed penis.
It is all too common to see a homeless person expose their private parts in post-COVID LA. When his dick was dangling out, the police were also present. We watched in shock as the cops looked at his exposed penis and did nothing. As soon as the homeless man pulled up his pants, the police pulled out.
My local bartender had many dealings with the homeless man that was stabbed. My bartender has a gentle heart. She serves German Lager on tap and craft cocktails on Promenade and Broadway. One night the homeless man stabbed was smoking a meth pipe and pestering me as I slammed a Hofbrau lager on the patio. The bartender intervened, calling the homeless man by his actual name. His demeanor immediately changed. This made him shoo away like an excited dog after getting a treat. She said that whenever she says this homeless man’s actual name he snaps out of it. We reasoned that it was the only part of his dignity left.
For Christmas 2021, my wife and stepdaughter went to the Dollar Store to buy care packs for the homeless. The care pack had toiletries, socks, water, a facemask, gloves, protein bars, and so many other essentials. For a week, while on our walks or driving around, we discussed which homeless people we should give the homeless care packs.
We intended to only give the care packs to homeless people that did not appear to be on drugs and were safe to approach. Our discussion involved Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche did not believe in true altruism (an unselfish act). Like college students, we discussed the act of giving the care pack and how it made my wife and stepdaughter feel. I argued that the act of giving the care pack was actually selfish because it fed their esteem. Such the same, as when I open a door for a little old lady.
We drove around searching for the right homeless person to bestow a gift. We struggled for days to find a homeless person safe to approach. A woman in New York City recently was murdered for the audacity to stand too close to a tent on a public sidewalk.
After much discussion, we could only agree to give a care package to the lady with the suitcases. Everyone else was either too high on drugs or unsafe to approach. The moment of truth arrived to deliver the bag of homeless goodies. It felt like we were stepping out of our normal lives. Here we were delivering a Christmas present to a homeless woman that lives in a doorway that we had been observing and talking about for months. We were highly alert.
We pulled in our luxury SUV up to her doorway. My wife said she could not see the lady with the suitcases. Our joy of giving her the gift was in jeopardy. I pointed out that her foot was dangling outside a blanket. The mission could be completed.
It was a cold night for Southern California. I watched from our car with the window rolled down, as my wife made the delivery. My wife set the Christmas bag down at a safe distance away and said in a soft voice “I have been wanting to give this specifically to you.” “To me” the voice beamed. “Praise the lord and Merry Christmas.”
My wife came back immediately. The lady with the suitcases did not come out from behind her suitcases to thank her. When my wife returned she did not have a selfish face but an angelic look. It was a spiritual moment, about making someone feel loved, about giving back to those suffering and dying on the streets.
The next morning, I walked past the lady with the suitcases at 645 am. From a safe distance, I saw she was agitated. She had dumped the contents of the care pack all over the sidewalk and into the bike lane. As soon as I passed her, I heard her scream, “I told you I don’t need this shit!” I was shocked because I had remained in the car the entire time. How did she know I gave her the care pack? Why was she cursing it?
At the crosswalk, a Long Beach Downtown Safety Team Ambassador stood close by with his awkward red city uniform. I felt like we had arrived at the same time, but he stayed standing there when I crossed the street. I was more concerned that the lady with the suitcases had somehow channeled some spiritual realm to time my presence. After safely passing by, I called my wife to gloat.
Like a bully, I said, “you’re not going to believe what I just saw!” I explained that I had witnessed the lady with the suitcases toss the care pack on the sidewalk and that she was yelling at me as she dumped it.
“See these homeless people have no dignity left! We were wrong about her. She dumped it all out right when I passed, the multigrain bars uneaten and scattered on the sidewalk with the COVID mask, it all fell in the bike lane.” I was very pleased with myself. My wife started to cry and hung up the phone on me.
I immediately called her back and said I was sorry. She refused to believe that the lady with the suitcases would behave in such a way. My wife said, “why must you be so right and hate on the homeless so much?” I back peddled, “maybe I only saw what I wanted to see.” Maybe my survival instincts had clouded me from the truth. All of the death and destruction caused by the homeless no longer mattered at that moment.
Without flinching, I marched back to the corner of Broadway and Pacific. The daily shuffle of the suitcases from the doorway to the street corner had commenced. It turned out that I was wrong about the lady with the suitcases.
It was apparent upon my return that the lady with the suitcases was not talking to me or cursing my wife’s care pack. She was cursing at the City Safety Ambassador for evicting her from the doorway, where she sleeps with her suitcases. The Christmas gift we gave her was right next to her and all appeared neatly put back into the bag. The bike lane was free of its contents. Like all of the times before, the suitcases were being gathered for their morning move. I misjudged her and felt low.
About three months later, I still had two more care packs still left to give away. I took one and tried to give it to the lady with the suitcases. The same care pack but this time she refused to accept the gift.
When I approached, she was sitting in her doorway brushing her hair. I said: “Excuse mam, would you like this bag, it has a bottle of water and food in it.” She snatched the bag from me and looked through it. It had cheez-its. I was shocked by her response. “Nah I cannot have cheez-its, I will have to fight you if you give me cheez-its. Do you wanna have to fight me?” I left with the feeling that the homeless do not want our help and lack the mental capacity to accept it.
The Bed Bug Bed & Perverted Mohawk Vodka Chugging Hobo
In June 2021, a neighbor from down the hall and his struggling Instagram model girlfriend had their apartment infested with bed bugs. A terrifying thing. My hipster neighbor illegally tossed his mattress behind the dumpster right near the beach steps.
Within 2-hours, his bed bug bed was dragged down on the beach. A homeless man of 50-60 years old with a red face from booze and sun claimed the queen-sized bed bug-infested mattress. Down on the beach, we saw him chugging Mohawk Vodka and reading Harry Potter. My wife made the comment that this was an old hobo and we had nothing to worry about.
The old hobo camped on the bed bug bed overnight illegally for a week. The cigarette butts and trash looked like the show hoarders on the beach.
The old hobo had no respect for the environment. We did not call the police when he started a campfire and his trash started to pile up. We had been disappointed too many times by the responses from Long Beach Police to homeless overnight camping on the beach.
For a week, we observed the bed bugs and Mohawk Vodka from our perch and tried to live our lives. I begged my wife not to take our dog down to pee and poop on the beach. If the homeless can live, camp, shit, and piss on the beach so should an innocent old poodle.
Anyway, my wife got pissed about the old hobo littering and harming the environment. I could not deter her from taking our dog to the beach. Her attitude is like so many. “I will not let this homeless person control where I go, we pay top dollar to live at the beach!” That attitude is a terrible mistake and often leads to attacks.
My wife went down and stayed a safe distance from the bed bugs. Only the hobo called for her attention. He pulled out his penis and started tugging it. The pervert asked my wife to join him on the bed bugs. She could see his penis. It triggered her repressed trauma.
I was at work when my wife called me in tears about seeing the masturbation. I had to restrain myself, I wanted to go down empty a can of pepper spray in the hobo’s face and teach him some manners. This hobo had crossed a line. But, I knew the police would arrest me if beat the shit of this loser.
We decided to call the police. It took the police over an hour to arrive. When they did, they spoke with the pervert, gave him a warning, and let him remain illegally camped on the beach. Despite the hobo jerking off, the police told us that since we did not film the hobo jerking off that the DA Gascon would not file charges. We were shocked. In Long Beach, unless you film a homeless person masturbating the police will not arrest them on the spot.
My wife was not the only person to catch the bed bug hobo jerking off. My recently divorced neighbor, who is “quiet as a church mouse” got a taste of it too. She called the police and again nothing was done.
The next time, the old hobo was wanking off, my wife was coming home and saw it. She whipped out her phone and filmed. The video shows the creep jerking off and speaking filthy to her. That was finally enough to get him arrested, but not the bed bug mattress removed.
Getting the mattress and bed bugs removed from the beach was a whole other ordeal. Long Beach City has a policy to not remove the trash abandoned by the homeless. Even after the arrest, the police had to give notice that they were removing the bed bug bed. The bed bugs and trash remained for 5 more days.
Maine Oysters and Resisting Arrest
On December 17, 2021, I was at King’s Fish House on Pine Avenue and Broadway for lunch. My wife said, “Let’s sit on the patio and enjoy the nice weather.” I responded, “Absolutely not, some desperate homeless person will put us at risk. Can we please sit at a booth?” Again, my wife, said she is from the city and is not going to let the homeless ruin our lunch.
As we are eating oysters from Maine, my worst fear happened. A homeless man was apprehended by a police officer right in front of our table. The officer was attempting the handcuff the homeless man. Only the tweaker would not cooperate and resisted arrest. DA Gascon decreed on his first day that the District Attorney would not prosecute resisting arrest cases.
The homeless man refused to comply with the officer’s request to put his right hand behind his back. He was holding an old-school radio in his right hand. After refusing to put his right hand behind his back to be cuffed, the homeless man turned on the cop and tackled him to the ground. I was so scared that the homeless person would overpower the cop and take his gun. I jumped up to see if I needed to help the cop before someone got killed.
My instincts kicked in to preserve life. My adrenaline made me spring up ready to pounce. My teeth were gritted and I was ready to kick some tweaker ass. Luckily, another person was there to help the cop detain the tweaker.
After the incident, my wife and I were both shaken, we did not have the appetite for grilled octopus and Chilean sea bass. Both of us were choked up. My wife was crying because I could have taken a bullet. I wept for the darkness and desperation of the world. Only twelve days later, I was in the line of fire again because of a homeless tweaker.
Felony Arrest on Long Beach Bike Path with Guns Drawn
On December 14, 2021, my wife and I invited friends and family to the beach. My cousins were in town from Hawaii. My brother, nephew, and friends were all over to enjoy a day at the beach. It was our inner circle.
I was hosting at my place and we had all the finer things. We had Argentinian, Austrian, and German lagers. We had Chilean queso empanadas, Argentinian beef empanadas, and Hawaiian style macaroni salad. My nephew and cousins played in the sand as the adults listened to music and visited.
My wife got tickets for the kids to go on a little Duffy Boat ride while the adult men played bocce balls and slammed beers. About 10-minutes after the kiddos left, we were deep in our bocce ball game. We had to pause the game because of a tweaker felony arrest.
Three cop cars pulled up fast on the busy bike path. I heard the officers call this tweaker out by his name. My law enforcement training kicked in. It was clear the police had located a dangerous suspect and had a warrant for his arrest. The tweaker like so many others was blended in on the bike path with the adjusted world.
As the cops exited their cars, I watched the tweaker back up and flash a knife at the cops. The cops drew their guns. My cousin that served in Iraq ducked for cover and got behind a palm tree. I ran into the line of fire where the cops had their guns drawn to tell our friends sitting down to get out of the way. The tweaker with guns drawn on him ran from the cops, right where my nephew had been building a sandcastle 10 minutes earlier.
The tweaker ran up the stairs near us. We all thanked God that the kids had just left. The bocce ball game continued about 5 minutes after the tweaker ran up the stairs. About an hour later, the cops came back to interview us. The police asked about the knife. They informed us that the guy was high on meth, had kidnapped a female, tied her up, and held her against her will.
Just like King’s Fish House, I ran into the line of fire created by a tweaker. My cousin and his military training ducked for cover. I have since had to promise my wife that the next time we are in the line of fire I will duck for cover too.
Bring Out Your Fentanyl Dead!
On August 23, 2021, two homeless people died outside La Opera on Pine and 1st Street due to a fentanyl overdose. La Opera remained boarded up with a barbed wire fence for a year after the Floyd looting. It seems like everyone knows someone that just died from a fentanyl overdose.
In December 2021, a colleague conducted a felony arraignment. His client is a trans, named Regina. Regina had a rap sheet spanning back a decade with multiple violent felonies. Regina was in for possession and assault. Regina was K-10 lock up or a high-priority inmate. That means as Snoop Dog rapped “shackled from head to toe.”
It was my friend’s job to inform Regina that her lover Ronnie had just died of a fentanyl overdose. Before delivering the news, he warned the bailiffs that there was going to be a very loud ruckus and to be ready with additional deputies. The bailiffs asked why and he brushed them away, “I will tell you after.”
News of Ronnie’s death was met with uncontrollable grief. Regina was screaming at the top of her lungs and sobbing uncontrollably. Only Regina was shackled to a chair by her legs and arms. She reacted just like I did when I found out my best friend died of a fentanyl overdose on September 11, 2021. Only Regina was chained up like an animal when she received the news.
Imagine the courtroom, Regina losing it over Ronnie. The judge had to do the arraignment while Regina is chained to a chair, trying to wiggle out of an impossible situation, sobbing uncontrollably, and completely helpless. What a sight, I thought. The human emotion captured at that moment just overwhelmed me.
I wanted to know what the bailiff did after the ruckus. The bailiff upon finding out the reason for the commotion had a rather cold response as I predicted.
The bailiff said of Ronnie’s fentanyl death: “Good fuck him!”
My heart hurts for Regina. The coldness of the bailiffs caused my blood to boil. I wanted to charge into the courtroom and tell those douchebag bailiffs that I would pay for their Pacific Sunwear credit card statements and Planet Fitness membership for the month if they would reflect and apologize for their callous comment about Ronnie. Seriously, all off-duty cops and plain-clothed officers dress like Midwest dudes. You see them wearing Billabong T-Shirts and Chuck Taylors well into their 40’s.
THE CITY OF LONG BEACH HAS SEEN A 67% INCREASE IN HOMELESS. THE MAYOR OF LONG BEACH, ROBERT GARCIA HAS DECIDED TO NOT SEEK A SECOND TERM. MAYOR GARCIA HAS PAID HIS DUES & WILL BE ELECTED TO CONGRESS INSTEAD. BELOW ARE SOME PHOTOS OF MAY0R GARCIA’S GREATEST FANS.
THE 562 REMEMBERS. WE STILL HAVE TIME TO STOP GARCIA’S MISGUIDED AMBITION AND RUN FOR CONGRESS. DO YOUR PART AND VOTE FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN ROBERT GARCIA!
The homeless horde is coming for us. Until next time, create distance between you and the homeless. Never under any circumstance acknowledge someone high on meth because it could mean your life.
Cordially yours,
Roland Tomasi