Attorney Brandon Coen wasn’t at all surprised when a homeless man walked up on a downtown Los Angeles sidewalk as Coen walked his dog, and punched him in the head.
“What was shocking was that I lived here for four years and it didn’t happen sooner,” Coen said. “I am always on the lookout.”
Security footage shows a homeless man strike a woman in the face with such force that she falls backward onto the ground. The man is then seen punching Coen, who managed to block some of the force with his left arm.
“It was scary because I didn’t know if he was going to stop or if he was going to continue to hit me or attack other people, possibly my dog,” he said. “I was very happy when LAPD showed up about five minutes later and arrested him because that’s fairly rare here.”
“Downtown is supposed to be the crown jewel of LA,” he said. “Unfortunately that’s not the reality. It’s different if you come and visit and go to dinner or get a drink but when you live here and you’re here 24 hours a day you see a different side of downtown, a scarier side.”
It’s not just Coen.
In one case, a Los Angeles woman was pulled from her car not far from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and doused with feces. She’s had to get tested for infectious diseases every three months since.
In December of 2018, a man was pushed off the sidewalk, and run over by a truck in downtown Los Angeles.
In August of 2019, a homeless man was caught on camera tossing a large rock at the windshield of a man’s car, and was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
According to Los Angeles Police Department records obtained and analyzed by the NBC4 I-Team, 6,528 homeless people were arrested on criminal c
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