A gardener was savagely battered by a homeless guy while working outside a Brentwood home, leaving neighbours upset and frustrated.
On June 23, Rodolfo Roman was working at a property on the 11900 block of Dorothy Street when a shirtless man approached him unexpectedly.
The man starts yelling at Roman, complaining about the noise from his lawn tools. When Roman requests him to go, he swiftly raises a heavy stick in his hands and begins viciously hitting him, bashing him on the head and face several times.
Roman collapses to the ground as the attacker continues to strike him. He raises his arm to shield his face from the blows, but the man smashes it, eventually breaking it.
Roman was rushed to the hospital, where he was given staples on his head for a big cut and a cast for his fractured arm.
“I was very scared,” he said. “My legs were shaking and I’m down on the ground.”
“This is my worst nightmare,” said Braden Yuill, whose home Roman was working on when he was assaulted. “He’s extremely upset. He comes every week and he’s just the most beautiful guy in the world and he was just covered in blood.”
“He hits him as hard as he can,” said Sean Heffron, a neighbor. “He hits him while he’s down, without conscience and at full strength.”
Heffron lives next door to the vacant lot where the squatter was staying. The owner reportedly abandoned the home after it burned down ten years ago.
Since then, Heffron claims the house has attracted squatters and transients, who have taken over the property and the street. Despite numerous appeals to local leaders and law police, residents claim nothing has been done to address the issue.
“This has been a living nightmare,” Heffron said.
Heffron reported that criminal activity at the abandoned residence has risen in recent months.
“The police have been called multiple times,” Yuill said. “There was a fire there last week that the fire department had to come and put out. We’ve spoken to that landowner multiple times.”
Yuill stated that he had even offered to buy the property from the landowner, but there was no interest in selling.
