Suspect arrested in fatal shootings of three unhoused men in LA, police say

A Los Angeles man who had already been arrested in another shooting investigation has been identified as the suspect in three recent killings of unhoused men, police said Saturday.

The Los Angeles police chief, Michel Moore, said 33-year-old Jerrid Joseph Powell was identified as the suspect in the three killings after authorities determined that a firearm found in the vehicle he had been driving when he was arrested earlier was linked to the shootings.

Powell was arrested this week by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies for the shooting death and robbery of a 42-year-old man whom he had followed home.

The announcement came a day after authorities said they were searching for a suspect in the shootings, which took place at the end of November during early morning hours while the victims were sleeping or preparing to turn in for the night.

Jose Bolanos, 37, was found dead with a gunshot wound around 3am on 26 November in an alley in south Los Angeles, police said. The following day, Mark Diggs, 62, was shot and killed while pushing a shopping cart around 5 am near downtown, according to officials.

The third shooting occurred on 29 November about 2:30am in the Lincoln Heights area, where the body of a 52-year-old man was found. Police have not identified him pending notification of his family.

Detectives identified Powell’s vehicle through surveillance footage and tracked it to the city of Beverly Hills, where police stopped him and found a firearm inside, authorities said.

“I am grateful that this suspect in this case is in custody and no longer a threat to this community,” Moore told reporters.

It was not immediately possible to identify an attorney for Powell, who is due to appear in court Monday. Online jail records show he was arrested Thursday and is being held on $2m bail.

“Living in the streets is dangerous, and four to five people die in our streets from a range of causes and violence is certainly one of them,” said Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass at a news conference on Friday.

Despite widespread misperceptions that unhoused people are responsible for the majority of big-city crime, research shows that they are more likely to be victims of assault, robbery and homicide than people who are housed. In 2022, unhoused people made up 24% of the city’s homicide victims despite making up just 1% of the population, according to an NBC 4 Los Angeles investigation. And four of the seven people killed in a string of homicides in Stockton in 2022 were unhoused at the time, reported KCRA, Sacramento’s NBC affiliate.