I'm just thoroughly sickened - once again - by the obscene and sadistic violence perpetrated by young adults."I don't think anybody deserves that kind of death. He never did anything to anyone."
Will we be able to stem or reverse this ugly tide? What could possibly motivate someone to do this to another human being who had done nothing whatsoever to provoke it?
I hope they both spend the rest of their lives in prison, locked away from the rest of us. I don't want their poisonous minds to influence anyone, anywhere at any time......
Homeless man attacked, killed
© 2008 The Associated Press
Nov. 19, 2008, 10:54AM
SAN ANTONIO — Two young men have been arrested in the death of a homeless man who was found dead after being stabbed, beaten and burned in an alley.
Johnny Pena, 55, had been living on the street on the city's west side since he stopped working as a barber three years ago. Authorities and family say he slept in alleys, drank a daily ration of beer and fed the stray dogs that liked to follow him around, but most in the neighborhood considered him harmless.
Authorities say he was sleeping in an alley early Saturday when Juan Gutierrez, 18, and Carlos Portillo, 19, came across him on their way home from a party.
"I'm going to go at him," said one of the young men, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Gutierrez told police he and Portillo kicked Pena repeatedly, stabbed him with a pocket knife and then hit him with a metal pipe, according to the affidavit.
The young men then poured a flammable liquid on Pena, lit a piece of paper on fire and threw it on him, the document says.
Gutierrez and Portillo were charged with murder Tuesday. Jail records had no attorney listed for either man.
Investigators don't believe the young men knew Pena and aren't sure what the motive was, said police spokesman Sgt. Gabe Trevino.
Nationally, the number of homeless killed is on the rise, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. There were eight homeless homicides in Texas last year.
"The perpetrators are primarily young people," Stoops said. "Some are crimes of opportunity. They do it because they know they can."
Pena's family said they constantly worried about his safety and repeatedly tried to get him to live at home.
For three decades, he worked at a barber shop, specializing in a $10 flat top but quit, succumbing to alcohol and depression, said Ricardo Guerra, Pena's 16-year-old son.
He would come home on and off, quit drinking, but then go back to the streets, Guerra said.
"He was just a free spirit that loved being outside," Guerra said. "It hurt me, and there's times I cried for my dad, but then I realized you can't stop someone from doing what they love."
Just two weeks ago, Guerra took him warm clothes.
"It hurts us to know that he passed away, but what hurts us the most is to know how he passed away," Guerra said. "I don't think anybody deserves that kind of death. He never did anything to anyone."
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