Attacks against homeless people in Kensington are on the rise: ‘Somebody is going to get killed’

One morning last month, Sean Anderson was nodding off on the low wall that borders McPherson Square Park in Kensington when someone hit him in the head so hard that he was knocked unconscious.

When Anderson came to, he said, he saw a group of teenagers and children jumping on his ankle, which dangled over the wall. The bone fractured. The group told him to get out of their park, he said.

Anderson, who has been addicted to heroin for 20 years, said it was the first time he had been attacked in the park. But it wasn’t the last. And Anderson, according to residents of the park and the outreach workers who care for them, isn’t the only victim.

In recent months, city outreach workers have noticed a steady rise in accounts of attacks in Kensington such as the one against Anderson: people sleeping or using drugs in the park who say they were beaten at random by young people.

Some people say they were punched or stomped, or hit with bats and bricks. Others say they were shot with paintball guns and BB guns. Still others say they were doused with cold water or had their belongings set on fire.

Elvis Rosado, a harm reduction educator at the city health department, said workers at Prevention Point, a neighborhood health center, have been treating, on average, two to three people a week who say they were attacked.

“These kids have been terrorizing them now for months,” Rosado said. “It’s a situation that has the potential to get out of control.”

Capt. Pedro Rosario, commanding officer of the 24th police district in Kensington, said that although reports of attacks haven’t risen and no recent victims have come forward to file complaints, he understands that people living in the park might not be comfortable talking to police.

He said that officers were made aware of the situation after city officials shared the concerns of outreach teams in the park and that officers believe a group of teens who live near the park may be involved.

The attacks are yet another fault line in a community riven by the opioid crisis, a situation worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened violence. More people are living on the streets, and more visibly: Outreach workers regularly encounter 30 to 50 people camping on the lawn outside McPherson Square Library.

City Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, who has been vocal about the needs of neighbors besieged by dealing and drug use, said she believes the attacks in the park may be the work of young people lashing out because they believe one of the few spaces where they could gather — the library and its playground — has been taken from them.

Quiñones-Sánchez, who represents the neighborhood, said the city needs to provide more services for young people — from spaces to gather to trauma-informed care.

“I am not going to criminalize young kids who are in their own trauma, responding to the fact that we have not given them their space back,” she said. “We have traumatized and impacted an entire community.”

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In recent weeks, the city has begun to roll out plans to revitalize the neighborhood and expand treatment and services for people in addiction, in an effort to strike a balance between improving life for residents and tackling the immense overdose crisis still centered in the neighborhood.

But Quiñones-Sánchez says the city still isn’t doing enough for residents.

Timothy Sheahan, director of homeless services for the city’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, said victims tell outreach workers they have been hesitant to defend themselves because their attackers are so young. He said those involved in the assaults are reportedly 8 to 15 years old.

Outreach workers aren’t calling for arrests — they’re hoping that by publicizing the issue, adults in the neighborhood can help intervene.

“The concern is that either somebody is going to get killed, or somebody is going to end up getting hurt, in either direction,” said Rosado, who also lives in the neighborhood and has been a vocal advocate for the rights of people in addiction.

Rosado and Sheahan said young people in the neighborhood need more support — as do the people in the park.

“You can’t do for one unless you do for the others,” Rosado said.

He said he fears that tensions in the park will be used as an excuse to simply push the homeless residents sleeping there to other spots in the neighborhood — a cycle that’s repeated itself in Kensington for years.

On a recent afternoon, many of the people camped on the McPherson lawn said they had been there on nights when the teens came through the park and saw them attack people.

Michael Shelton, 32, who sat on the lawn with a blanket over his shoulders, said he had recently been punched and kicked by teens. Like others, he said he felt unsafe in a place that had become something of a refuge for people in addiction, who — as larger encampments have been closed — have been more and more exposed on the streets.

Anderson, 43, walks with a limp from his injured ankle — and bears a scar over his eyes, where he received stitches. He said the teens had since sprayed him with a fire extinguisher, stolen garden tools he used for work — and two weeks ago, one of the older kids punched him on Kensington Avenue. During a recent interview, his face was still cut.

Rosado urged compassion for the people in the park: “Remember that we are talking about human beings that are being attacked and brutalized just because they are in the situation they are in.”

Staff writer Aubrey Whelan contributed to this article.