Homeless Are Seen as Prey

The beating death of a man living along the Ventura River bottom was not an isolated incident, and homeless people in the area are often the victims of assaults and other crimes, advocates said Friday.

“This was inevitable. It was waiting to happen,” said Kim Devine, program director for Our Place Shelter, which serves mentally ill people living on the street. “We hear reports from homeless folks about someone being chased down and harassed.”

Four teenagers were charged this week with the June 29 fatal beating of James Richard Clark as he slept in a brush-covered area just west of the river’s estuary. Clark, 58, was also pelted with rocks in the attack.

Devine and others familiar with the homeless people who live in the river bottom said that nearly all have had run-ins with young men who like to prey on them.

“The people are afraid to go to sleep because some kids are going to ambush them,” said Mary Ann Decaen, a case worker at the Ventura Avenue branch of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles. “Many of them over a period of time have been frightened by what they termed as skinhead groups that zero in on the homeless in the river bottom.”

But Ventura police and city officials contend that Clark’s beating death was an isolated incident. It was not part of a widespread crime spree by local youths targeting the city’s homeless population, Police Chief Mike Tracy said.

“I don’t see it as a broader wave of marauding gangs, but it is a serious crime,” Tracy said. “We can’t generalize this as a trend.”

Christopher Michael Dunham, Timothy John Becker and Robert Allen Upton, who also uses the family name Coffman, were charged with murder and robbery in Clark’s death. All three 18-year-olds are eligible for the death penalty.

A 14-year-old boy also faces charges in the murder, and prosecutors said they will ask a Juvenile Court judge to try him as an adult.

Clark, a well-known member of the city’s river bottom homeless community, will be remembered today at a memorial service in Ventura.

Several homeless people who spend their nights among the scrub oak and trees above the river said that since Clark’s death they have lived in fear that they will also become targets of crime.

“It’s really scary here at night,” said Dannette Rodriguez, 39, who often sleeps in the same area where Clark died. “You never know who is going to come out and beat you up.”

People living near the river said it’s well known that several Ventura skinhead gangs party in the area and sometimes threaten them. But police are unaware of any such problems, said Lt. Quinn Fenwick.

Police are investigating claims that the four teenagers suspected of killing Clark are members of an organized gang.

“They are vulnerable out there, but the Ventura Police Department is not turning a blind eye to these individuals,” Fenwick said.

City Councilman Jim Monahan said the only way to protect the homeless people who live in the area is to keep them out. He said the Police Department needs to start enforcing a 1997 ordinance that bans sleeping and camping in the Ventura River plain.

“What we have always tried to do is get a better place for these people to live,” Monahan said. “We have tried to get them out of the river bottom. What we need to do is go back to the policy of keeping them out of [the river area] period.”