Security officers increasingly attacked by homeless people
Charlotte NC June 29 2021
Cities and towns in both the US and Canada have turned to the private sector to help in combating bad behavior by the homeless population.
With more homeless camps popping up on sidewalks, in parks and just anyplace that tents can be erected, especially in business and tourist areas of a town, there has been more complaints from the public.
Security officers throughout Canada and in the US cities of Denver, Charlotte, Tempe, Nashville, Anchorage as well as in smaller towns, confrontations, assaults and injuries to security personnel have increased.
During the week of June 13th-19th, 26 security officers reported being assaulted.
Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva is urging the County Board of Supervisors to declare a local state of emergency to address the county’s homeless crisis.
“Enough is enough,” he said, citing increased crime, unsanitary conditions and struggling businesses.
“We’ve been inundated with calls, with concerns, with images from the news, from people picking up the phone, emailing, sending us letters, about what’s going on in Venice,” Villanueva told reporters at a news conference this week. “And that is a microcosm of what’s going on throughout the entire county of Los Angeles.”
Roughly 200 people live on the famous Venice Beach Boardwalk, where more than 10 million tourists used to visit every year. Another 2,000 homeless are camped throughout the neighborhood, the second largest concentration of homeless camps outside of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
While the sheriffs’ Homeless Outreach and Services Team (HOST) is focused on the area, their efforts are being hampered by politics, Villanueva says.
The top earning employees compensated by the Venice Family Clinic revenue, a nonprofit organization tasked with providing comprehensive health care services to low-income Venice Beach residents, total over $2.8 million, Villanueva said.
Additionally, Los Angeles spends close to $1 billion annually on homeless services, while homelessness has only gotten worse.
Villanueva says his office is going to start enforcing the law, citing California Code 26.600. It states the sheriff “shall preserve peace, and to accomplish this object may sponsor, supervise, or participate in any project of crime prevention, rehabilitation of persons previously convicted of crime, or the suppression of delinquency.”
“You don’t have a right to negatively impact the community and claim public space as your own,” he said.
In Fresno California, investigators say a security guard was doing a routine check of a property when he saw 35-year-old Joseph Gutierrez and questioned him.
The homeless man attacked the security officer. As things escalated, a physical fight broke out between the two and that’s when the security guard fired his weapon, and the homeless man was killed.
Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderama said his office is still investigating, but they do have good surveillance footage from nearby cameras.
