Homeless Man Set on Fire By 3 White Men With Shaved Heads

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/homeless-man-set-fire-3-white-men-shaved-heads




On Saturday night, three men crept up to a 58-year-old homeless man who was sleeping on a Ventura, California beach. They poured lighter fluid all over his sleeping bag and set him on fire, then fled the scene while a witness tried to put out the six-foot flames with sand, according to KABC. The perpetrators were white men with shaved heads, clad in black, according to witnesses.

The victim, 58-year-old John Frazier, who spent his time sitting on the beach not bothering anyone, according to residents, suffered second and third degree burns all over his body, according to the report. He's in critical but stable condition.

“We were talking about how beautiful the sunset was and the fish sculptures and how nice the evening was and he was just a really nice guy,” Elaine Lutz told KNBC about Frazier, according to Raw Story.

"It's so hard to believe that they can be so brutal. It's just ridiculous," another dazed-looking resident told KABC.

[Omaha Steve]

1. WHY???

I just don't get it.

[BlueJazz]

2. I used to get in a man-rage about stuff like this. Now I just want to cry.

Some of us are so cruel.

[11 Bravo]

21. I need to get to where you are, because right now ...

I want to kill someone, and I know that's not healthy.

[daleanime]

3. I have become so cynical.....

doubt it will receive 1/100th the attention in the MSM that it would if the attackers were black.

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. Really? ...

If it's any help, someone getting beat to death in a fight over a parking space doesn't get nearly the media coverage of a story where someone is stalked and killed, Wonder why that might be?

All acts of brutality are terrible ... but there is a particular noteworthiness when they are killed because of their flavor.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Sociopaths.

[heaven05]

5. In this society

it's not hard at all to believe people can be very brutal. I hope they are caught and set on fire themselves.

[LiberalLoner]

30. +1

[newfie11]

7. Pure evil

Poor poor man. I hope he survives. He's got a long road ahead just to get back to where he was.

I hope the psychopath SOBs that did this are caught soon before they do this again,

[tblue]

8. Hospital address in case you want to contact him:

Southern California Regional Burn Center
LAC+USC Healthcare Network Inpatient Tower, 5th Floor
1200 North State Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033

I am just dumbfounded. So very cruel and heartbreaking.

[Hoppy]

9. N.J. has a fund to compensate victims of crime.

Does Ca. have such a fund?

[ozone82]

13. Appears So..

No idea if he could make use of it, hope he can. [link:http://vcgcb.ca.gov/victims/|

[Terra Alta]

32. If not, then I hope someone sets up a GoFundMe page for the victim.

He's going to need all the help he can get.

[Sunlei]

10. I hope they catch the attackers. They are probably locals & have attacked others before.

Cameras all over Ventura beach area. Homeless persons need a secure safe place to sleep(no police harassment either)

http://www.vcstar.com/news/beachcam

[Flatulo]

11. What the fuck is wrong with people? If my kid did this, I'd shoot him myself.

Don't parents teach their children empathy for others? Are there that many sociopaths among us?

[oberliner]

12. Is there a reason why their race is included in the headline?

That seems not germane at all to what happened.

[jtuck004]

14. It's part of their description until they know who it was. n/t

[oberliner]

15. I can understand including those details in the body of the article

But I don't really see the need to do so in the headline.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. In that case let's mention late teens to early 20's as their described ages

And give this:
Anyone with information is asked to call the Ventura Police Department at [phone]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-man-fire-ventura-20150118-story.html

[Starry Messenger]

16. Sounds like Nazi skins to me.

Could be very germane.

[joshdawg]

17. That's kinda what I was thinking.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. Or off-duty Marines (there's a naval base less than ten miles away)

[Starry Messenger]

22. Hopefully not.

I'm more inclined to suspect white supremacists. There's more than one group in Ventura. I think Save our State, and another one called CRW. Could be more.

[1StrongBlackMan]

27. The two groups ...

Marines and white supremacists, are not mutually exclusive.

http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20140610/NEWS/306100083/White-separatist-propaganda-turns-up-Fort-Carson

[pocoloco]

28. Fort Carson is not a Marine base!

Semper Fi

[1StrongBlackMan]

29. Are there no Marine at Fort Hood? ...

But my point was there are white supremacist in all branches of the US military.

[Starry Messenger]

33. Right. Cops too, I don't have a link handy...

but we've seen those too. It's just that Ventura and other beach communities in SoCal have been a locus of Nazi skins for some reason, so that's what immediately came to my mind.

[enki23]

25. Because "white men with shaved heads" = probable racial motivation if the victim is black

Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 11:36 AM - Edit history (1)

To state the ridiculously obvious.

[jtuck004]

20. I wonder how they became radicalized? n/t

[Overseas]

23. Sad K&R.

[mountain grammy]

24. These sociopaths need to be caught and put away..

When you look at some of the lame reasons people are locked away in America, and real murderers are walking the streets. This is a prison for life kind of crime.

[allan01]

26. grrr

who made them judge , jury and executioner . what gave them the g..mn f++king right to set this man alight ? who the sam heck do u shite heads think who u are ?. if u claim u r christians then you should read the part about LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF. you alpha hotels. about that love thy neighbor thing , i meant it . author , god. on edit . many times we are not here by choice . too bad the punishment dosnt fit the crime.

[Terra Alta]

31. an eye for an eye

Find the perpetrators, and set them on fire. See how they like it.

Unbelievable how cruel some humans can be.

[NaturalHigh]

34. I hope they catch these bastards and lock them away forever.

Assholes like these aren't even human and don't deserve to live in our society.

[beam me up scottie]

35. This poor man is going to be in agony for the rest of his life.

Also from the article:

Sadly, it's not that hard to believe; homeless people are often the targets of brutal, senseless crimes. From rape to assault to murder, violence is a fact of life for many people living outdoors, homelessness advocates say. According to a 2014 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless, violent attacks on the homeless grew by 23 percent in 2013 from the previous year (the measure is based on reported attacks, so it may be a lowball estimate. It's also difficult to know if the increase is due to more people reporting the crimes. Homelessness advocates have long lobbied for the government to collect data on crimes against the homeless). Between 1999 and 2013 the NCH has cataloged 1,437 instances of violence against homeless people by non-homeless people.

It's not hard to see why the homeless are so vulnurable to violence: they have nowhere safe to go and are widely dehumanized. Instead of investing in safe shelters and housing, many US cities opt to enact laws that further marginalize the homeless, like anti-panhandling and anti-camping measures.

As professor and homelessness expert Amy Donley told Al Jazeera, “These laws devalue homeless people and further distance them from mainstream society,” she said, adding that the visible homeless who are not in shelters “are the people that society most fears, and yet they are the most vulnerable of homeless people, in terms of physical attacks.”

Men under 30 -- especially teenagers -- commit the large majority of crimes against the homeless, according to the NCH report. "Some who target the homeless are “mission offenders, who believe they are on a mission to cleanse the world of a particular evil,” says the NCH. “Others are scapegoat offenders, who violently act out their resentment toward the perceived growing economic power of a particular racial or ethnic group,” notes Al Jazeera.

Homeless people also suffer violence at the hands of police, many of whom do not receive proper training on non-violent ways to deal with people who might suffer from mental illness. Last year New Mexico police gunned down a man living in a part of the Albuquerque foothills where camping is not unauthorized. He agreed to come down and had started gathering his belongings when police chucked a flash-grade grenade at him, causing him to draw his knife. Police then shot him to death.

Society fears the wrong people.