Pepper Spray

It was a hot afternoon, and time to walk Jasper the dog. We headed out and started cruising the X Street corridor, not far from the homeless encampments under the W-X freeway.

I heard a woman screaming. She was sitting in the bushes on the other side of X Street against a chain link fence. Three men responded to her calls, carrying jugs of water to her. She was holding her forehead. I was worried she had just been hit by a car. A watching homeowner along X Street called the police.

"Where's my phone, bitch?" A thin man on a bicycle threatened from the other side of the chain link fence. Together with a friend, the woman came running across X Street. She was holding her forehead, in great pain. Apparently she had been pepper sprayed. The homeowner provided a hose with water to wash the stuff off her skin and from her eyes.

We had a discussion about whether pepper spray or mace is worst. Consensus was pepper spray is worst. We remained a long time as she washed her face and neck. Jasper looked bored. Worst walk ever, in his opinion.

Several of the woman's male acquaintances gathered around to help if they could. The thin man was now off his bicycle and approached on foot. The homeowner ran upstairs to retrieve his gun - he wasn't going to take chances. Jasper and I stood there. One of the woman's male friends ran interference and pulled the thin man aside. Apparently the thin man then called a Lyft or Uber. In a few minutes, a late-model car (maybe a white Sonata, 2016 or newer, license plate 8MUG730) pulled up. The thin man jumped out of the car's back seat, walked over, and took her belt pack. None of us resisted the brazen theft.

Cops drove right past and parked in a nearby parking lot. If they were responding to the case here, they clearly didn't care. I talked to the homeowner. He said things began getting worse along the X Street corridor in 2018. Authorities used to make the camps shift back and forth between 22nd and 23rd Street, but with the Covid crisis, that wasn't happening any more, and the camps were growing bigger, and more permanent. The homeowner was familiar with the city's plans, recently torpedoed by the Trump Administration. Well most of the city's plans. "I called bullshit on the homeless advocate at the last meeting and got thrown out," he said.

I encountered the woman and her friend again a couple blocks away. She was disappointed. "No one does anything," she said. "There are these tough guys in the homeless camps going around and robbing everyone, and nobody does anything." They started walking away when the cops came around and parked nearby. I told the cops they missed all the action. The cops said, "no we didn't." They said they were looking after a disruptive transient matter, and didn't know about anything going on on X Street.

Jasper and I headed home. Most of all, I was disturbed by the lack of police response.