After SUV jumps curb, hits tent, Sacramento homeless worry hate crimes ramping up
After the driver of an SUV jumped a curb and crashed into a tent earlier this month — sending three to the hospital with severe injuries — Sacramento’s unhoused worry that hate crimes they experience could be increasing.
Homeless individuals often endure people hurling items, or shooting paint balls, at them, just for being homeless, said Crystal Sanchez of the Sacramento Homeless Union. But if the driver intentionally jumped the curb to hit the homeless on April 12 in the River District, that would be a new level.
Police on April 18 arrested Jesus Banegas, 43, in connection to the incident and charged him with a hit-and-run resulting in injury, according to CBS 13. Police did not immediately respond to an inquiry Saturday asking if any of the three critically injured people have died.
Carol Dutcher, who has lived in a wooded Rio Linda camp for about four years, started crying when she learned about the incident from a reporter on Saturday.
“Sometimes at night when people see us on the road they aim their car at us, like they wanna terrify us by thinking we’re gonna get run over,” Dutcher, 59, said.
Once as she stood on the sidewalk at the entrance of her camp, someone threw a large drink out of their car, hitting Dutcher in her shoulder and leaving a large bruise, she said. She once saw a teenager tie a strap around a port-a-potty, trapping a homeless woman inside for four hours. She’s also heard of people coming to camps with guns, “acting like they’re hunting people,” she said.
“(The April 12 hit-and-run) is a huge escalation, it really is,” said Dutcher, who became homeless after she was laid off from a bank and her husband died.
“I’ve lived in Rio Linda for years before I lost my housing, and the shift in how people treated me around town was shocking. It’s like suddenly I was a stray dog and not a human being anymore.”
Sacramento County park rangers last month issued Dutcher a misdemeanor citation for trespassing in the wooded area in Rio Linda, even though it’s public property. If she has to move from the wooded area to a sidewalk, she’d be worried about being more vulnerable to hate crimes, such as being struck by vehicles, she said.
Sharon Jones, 55 of Sacramento, has the same concern. She became homeless seven years ago after she was laid off from a liquor store. She lives in the Camp Resolution sanctioned campground in North Sacramento, which the city has ordered to close by May 16. If the city does not move their trailers to another property, they will be on the streets and will be worried about hate crimes and getting hit by cars, she said.
“They call us such bad names you can’t put them in the newspaper,” said Jones. “We’re going to be so unsafe if the camp closes. We’re all gonna be out on the street and there’s nowhere to go. At least here we got a barrier. This fence provides a lot of safety for these people in here.”
Jennie Welles said she used to sleep in the River District, not far from where the hit-and-run occurred, and that she endured several serious hate crimes.
“I was pregnant, and kids shot me with a paintball gun and my son came out with a black eye,” said Welles, who has been in housing for a year. “They need a place for people to be safe. All they’re doing is putting people on waiting lists.”
There are more than 2,600 people and an additional 678 families on the waiting list for the city’s roughly 1,300 shelter beds, according to a recent city report.
Banegas’ next court date is scheduled for Tuesday.
