A 33-year-old Los Angeles man has been arrested on suspicion of killing three homeless people sleeping alone around the city at night.
Gerrid Joseph Powell, a convicted felon, also is accused in a follow-home killing in San Dimas earlier this week, authorities said at a Saturday, Dec. 2 news conference.
A handgun recovered from Powell’s vehicle was used in the three homeless killings, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said.
Powell is in the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said members of the Beverly Hills Police Department conducted a traffic stop of Powell’s vehicle Wednesday night, and Powell was arrested early Thursday.
Luna said the vehicle was linked to Powell after the San Dimas killing, which occurred just before 7 p.m. Tuesday in the garage of a home in the 1800 block of Hawkbrook Drive.
The homeless killings occurred early in the mornings of Sunday, Nov. 26, Monday, Nov. 27 and Wednesday, Nov. 29.
In each case, a man approached a homeless person sleeping alone, shot them with a handgun, then fled in a car.
Moore said his detectives had analyzed security camera footage to identify one man who appeared at all three scenes.
The killings were in the Westmont area in South Los Angeles, downtown L.A. and East L.A. just over the L.A. River from Elysian Park.
From LAPD’s headquarters on Friday, Dec. 1, Bass issued a widespread alert to people living on the streets, urging them to seek out city shelters or to gather in groups to stay safe.
LAPD said the first shooting on Nov. 26 occurred at 3:10 a.m. near 110th Street and Vermont Avenue in Westmont. Moore said the victim in that case, identified as 37-year-old Jose Bolanos, was sleeping on a couch behind a building when a man approached him, pulled out a gun and shot him to death.
The second shooting occurred the next morning. On Nov. 27 at 4:45 a.m., 62-year-old Mark Diggs was pushing a shopping cart in the Skid Row area of…
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