By Doug Porter
While San Diegans celebrated the Fourth of July, local authorities called a press conference in response to two brutal murders and failed third attempt, all with victims believed to be homeless humans.
The SDPD is looking for a ‘person of interest,’ we are told. Grainy pictures from a convenience store camera show a man wearing what was described as a tan or brown jacket or sweatshirt and a green baseball cap. He was carrying a backpack.
Witnesses reported a person matching that description seen running from the area of the first known murder across northbound lanes of I-5 to the center divide. Others said he was carrying a gas can.
From the Union-Tribune:
The crimes began around 8:06 a.m. Sunday when the San Diego Police and Fire Department received a call of a fire in the 2700 block of Morena Boulevard. Authorities spotted the fire between northbound Interstate 5 and the train tracks.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze and discovered the deceased and badly burned body of a male adult.
From City News Service, via KPBS:
Then, early Monday, police received a call of a man bleeding on Greenwood Street near Kurtz Street in the Sports Arena area.
Police said officers found a man who had stab wounds in his upper torso, and he was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The attack happened about 4:50 a.m. and about three miles from the killing on Sunday.
Then, around 6:10 a.m. Monday, police received a report of a bloody body near the tennis courts at the Robb Athletic Field in Ocean Beach. Police said he had trauma to his upper torso.
killer image jpg
NBC7 found a convenience store clerk who sold a gas can, one gallon of fuel, a lighter and gum to the person of interest shortly before the first reported murder.
“This guys walked in and asked me if we have gas cans here and we do. So I kind of reached for one,” Elliott said….
…“He was kind of nervous and a fast talker so I made a joke with him. Kind of like, ‘you talk too fast’ but he was kind of looking at me funny,” Elliott said.
The first victim was identified by an area merchant as Lorenzo:
“I think it’s tragic. He’s a really humble guy. He never bugged anyone,” Roman said.
He says Lorenzo would come by his store to buy a sandwich, soup, and two snickers candy bars.
On June 21st San Diego Patch reported a series of assaults on homeless humans in downtown San Diego:
San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros said at least six victims suffered lacerations to their heads when someone struck them with an unknown object. The attacks, which were reported just before 2 a.m., all happened with a four-block radius of Horton Plaza, according to the officer.
Two possible suspects in the attacks were described as a Latino man in his 20s who was wearing a black beanie, a black hoodie, and black pants; and a black woman riding a black mountain bike.
These attacks occurred in the context of a local government effort to “clean up” homeless encampments.
Police have been conducting “sweeps” in the weeks leading up to the Major Leader Baseball All-Star Game. Field interrogations of homeless humans are leading to citations, impounding of personal belongings, and arrests for outstanding warrants.
Many of those outstanding warrants are from earlier unpaid citations, amounting to an endless ‘catch and release’ cycle having the net effect of criminalizing homelessness.
As former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña wrote in an op-ed published the Union-Tribune just a few weeks ago:
One risk of having authorities turn homelessness into a crime is the justification by some of violent acts against them, as shown in recent increases in horrific assaults and murders in San Diego County. It also costs taxpayers for SDPD enforcement, storage and management of personal possessions, and jail costs if people are incarcerated simply for being homeless.
Meanwhile, advocates for the homeless are organizing for activities during the July 7-12 All Star Game events, hoping to raise awareness among visitors about the persecution of people experiencing homelessness in the vicinity of Petco Park.
Extreme Carelessness News #1: The Hillary Report
FBI Director James Comey took to airwaves this morning to announce that no charges would be brought against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton resulting from the investigation into how emails were handled during her tenure as Secretary of State.
From CNN:
“Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey announced after a lengthy recap of the investigation the FBI conducted.
But Comey delivered a stunning tongue lashing of Clinton and her State Department colleagues. His stinging critique came just hours before Clinton is scheduled to campaign with President Barack Obama for the first time this election season.
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” he said, “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Clinton’s presumptive Republican opponent Donald Trump blasted Comey’s decision an example of a rigged system.
For those who say FBI Director Comey is in Hillary’s pocket, he is a registered Republican who donated to McCain in ’08 and Romney in ’12.
— Cameron Stell (@cameron_stell) July 5, 2016
I’m sure all the “Bernie or Bust” types who have been counting on an indictment will be nearly as disappointed as the Republican Party is.
Extreme Carelessness News #2: The Donald Report
Speaking of extreme carelessness, Donald Trump’s been doing a laughable job of explaining away the use of a neo-nazi sourced graphic to attack Hillary Clinton.
trump nazi image jpg
From Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:
Donald Trump’s habit of cozying up to white supremacists on Twitter drew occasional notice during the primaries, but it really hit the headlines over the Fourth of July weekend. Saturday, Trump tweeted an image labeling Hillary Clinton the “most corrupt candidate ever”—but it was fact that those words were in a Star of David superimposed on a pile of money that drew the attention.
The Trump campaign changed the Star of David to a circle, while insisting that in any case it wasn’t a Star of David, it was a “sheriff’s star” or “plain star.” Too bad for the Trump campaign that it didn’t take long for the media to report that the image didn’t originate with the Trump campaign and had previously been shared on white supremacist sites. Hmm … which are white supremacists more interested in putting next to Hillary Clinton—a sheriff’s star or a Star of David? Quite a mystery!
But it gets better. Trump’s social media director released a statement saying he’d gotten the image from an anti-Hillary Twitter user. So it’s instructive to see what kind of anti-Hillary user the Trump campaign is sourcing its dank memes from.
Trump rep who posted Jewish star graphic denies he’s anti-Semitic. Here are other images from account he stole from. pic.twitter.com/r7rSTvQqD1
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 5, 2016
On This Day: 1916 – Adelina and August Van Buren started on the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour to be attempted by two women. They started in New York City and arrived in San Diego, CA, on September 12, 1916. 1934 – West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike, Battle of Rincon Hill, San Francisco. Some 5,000 strikers fought1,000 police, scabs and national guardsmen. Two strikers were killed, 109 people injured. The incident, forever known as “Bloody Thursday,” led to a general strike 2015 – In Chicago, IL, The Grateful Dead performed the final show of their Fare Thee Well tour.
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