Man charged in killings of 3 homeless people and a suburban LA resident, prosecutors say
LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged a man Monday with four counts of murder in the fatal shootings of three homeless Los Angeles men and a suburban resident last month.
Jerrid Joseph Powell was also charged with one count of residential robbery and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in a statement. He also faces special circumstances, including committing multiple murders, murder during a robbery and personal use of a firearm, the statement said.
Powell, 33, was scheduled to appear in court for arraignment later in the day. Efforts over the weekend to determine whether he had an attorney were unsuccessful.
Powell was initially arrested last week as a suspect in a fatal shooting during a home invasion robbery in the community of San Dimas, east of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles resident was subsequently identified as a suspect in the killings of the three homeless men when a firearm found in his car was linked to those shootings, authorities said.
The motive for the killings of the homeless victims was not known, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said at a news conference last weekend announcing the arrest.
Jose Bolanos, 37, was found dead of a gunshot wound in a South Los Angeles alley around 3 a.m. on Nov. 26, police said. The next day, Mark Diggs, 62, was shot and killed while pushing a shopping cart near downtown around 5 a.m., officials said.
The third shooting occurred around 2:30 a.m. on November 29 in the Lincoln Heights area, where the body of a 52-year-old man was found. Police did not immediately identify him pending notification of his family.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Simbolon, 42, was shot dead at his home in San Dimas on the evening of November 28. Authorities obtained surveillance footage of a suspicious vehicle and the next night a license plate reader in Beverly Hills alerted police to a traffic violation. stop, resulting in Powell's arrest.
“I want to express my deepest appreciation to the incredible men and women of law enforcement who worked tirelessly to bring justice to our community and arrest this individual,” District Attorney George Gascón said in Monday's statement. “The quick actions of law enforcement undoubtedly saved lives this week.”
If convicted on all charges, Powell faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Los Angeles County is the nation's most populous, with about 10 million people, and was home to more than one in five of the nation's homeless, according to a 2022 federal count. The last official count in January found there were On any given night, more than 75,000 people are homeless across the country.
Advocates for the homeless say those living on the streets are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.
Five homeless people were shot in Las Vegas on Friday, one of them fatally, and police were searching for a lone suspect, authorities said.
In Orange County, California, a man was charged with killing four homeless men in a series of stabbings from late 2011 to early 2012. Itzcoatl Ocampo, a former Marine, was charged with four counts of murder with special charges of multiple counts of murder, lying in wait and use of a deadly weapon in the murders. Ocampo died while awaiting trial after allegedly eating a cleanser he had slowly collected while in custody.