Laz Rojas

Update: I'm currently at the hotel, thanks to some very generous GoFundMe donations. Good thing too, as not only is another cold rainstorm moving in tonight, but I really need to be off my feet for a while to give them the chance to recover. Six months ago, I could run and jump and do any of the things I could do my entire life. Now every step I take hurts. If someone were to chase me like the lunatic who did last year at a Metrorail station, I wouldn't be able to get away. As for my lawsuit, the defense has asked for, and apparently been granted, more time. I don't know how long this is going to be dragged out. I can't believe they actually want to fight this. I don't see how they can possibly win or get off the hook, but maybe they're corrupt and arrogant enough to do it and risk a jury awarding me a record amount. So be it.

It never ends. It's almost 10:30 PM and I was sitting in the north end of the park to wait until 1 AM to go to sleep. Within half an hour of arriving there, a homeless guy came over and sat down on the ground not ten feet from me. I immediately bristled, wondering what to expect. He asked me how things were going and I said, "Okay." I was about to bring out my phone just before he arrived and play some solitaire, but fortunately I hadn't yet done so. I am wary of having either of my phones stolen, since I lost two of them as well as a tablet when my original duffel bag was stolen. Then he asked, "Do you smoke?" I said no. "Do you do any recreational drugs?" he asked. Again I said no. 'You don't?" he asked, surprised. "I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs," I replied. "I'm clean living." He then proceeded to bring out some drug paraphernalia from his backpack and lit up something to smoke. Since I've never used any kind of drugs, I have no idea what he was using. Crack? Meth? Beats the hell out of me. He asked me if I could give him a dollar. I said I wished I could but I didn't have any cash. This was true, since I only carry my ATM card and my EBT card. Then he asked me if I had an extra shirt. Again I said no, and again that was true. Then he continued smoking whatever he was smoking. By this point, I was getting both annoyed and apprehensive. I had no idea what might happen and his presence was making me uncomfortable. I thought, "Why do these guys keep gravitating to me when I go out of my way to be alone? This is getting worse and worse all the time. I wish I was invisible." Suddenly, he said, "Not even weed?" I said, "Nope, not even cigarettes. Nothing at all." I wondered if that might actually annoy him, but then he asked "Do you have a phone?" This time, I lied. I said, "Yeah, but it's dead. I gotta recharge it tomorrow." Thankfully, he accepted that. But I thought, "What am I gonna do now? I'm not gonna sit here waiting for almost three hours until 1 AM, both angry at his intrusion into my life and worried about what might happen. And I can't bring out my phone and use it now." I tried to be nonchalant and remain calm, but I considered what he was doing very rude and an intrusion into my personal space. I may have been on the street, in a park, without any hope of actual privacy, but I would never have sat down and joined a perfect stranger. I'd consider it rude, and I'd be concerned the other person wouldn't like it. So I keep to myself and try to avoid trouble as much as possible. But lately, it seems trouble keeps coming to me, and guys like this intrude into my personal space. I waited about another ten minutes, then I got up and said I needed to move on. As an excuse for that, I warned him that the cops often raid the park between 10 and 1 and kick everyone out. He didn't say anything, and I suppose whatever he was smoking was taking effect, so I made my retreat. I went to a bus stop bench a block away and sat down, and that's where I am right now writing this to calm my nerves while I wait till 1 AM. This is how things are getting out here. This is why I say I'll be hard pressed to make it to when this lawsuit is resolved if it takes long. Soon, there'll be no place for me to go to have any privacy or peace of mind at all except for the hotel. At the hotel, it's as if none of this exists. I might as well be light-years away from it all. No one can bother me, no one can intrude, no one can hurt me or steal my things. Total peace of mind, as well as security and safety and stability. A warm bed, my own private toilet and bathtub and shower and sink, a television with dozens and dozens of channels, a microwave and mini fridge. I plug my phones into the AC and can use them 24-7 without the batteries draining a single percent, and I can use the hotel's wi-fi 24-7 without having to conserve or worry about my data usage. Put simply, being at the hotel is like being in heaven, and being on the street is like being in hell. Two completely different worlds and realities, completely opposite each other, and the only thing that overlaps between them is me. And I keep going back and forth between them like a ping-pong ball. Whenever I can get to the hotel, it's like coming into port during a bad storm and being safe from the wind and the rain. When I enter whatever room they give me, I say to myself, 'I am home." And it truly feels like home, a place of my own. While I'm there, everything feels temporarily right. The Ramada in Pasadena has been the only home I've had since March 6, 2022. When I'm on the street, I feel like a ship that's broken anchor and is lost at sea, without rudder or compass, at the mercy of everything. And I wonder if I'll hit an iceberg at any time and sink. Please pray for me. This has been hard since the beginning and continues to get harder. I am caught between a past that's gone, that was erased, and a future that is yet to be, waiting to come into port for good.

Another installment of "The Adventures of Laz", which perhaps should be subtitled "To Live and Die in L A." The homeless problem here is getting worse all the time. In just the past few months, I've witnessed the number of homeless people steadily increase in the areas I frequent. There are all kinds of homeless people, so you can't paint them all with the same brush. They range from people like me, who are clean and conscientious and are on the street for a variety of reasons, to burnt out zombies with either mental problems or substance abuse issues or both. The prevalence of the latter can be blamed on state and county officials, who actually released people from mental institutions and put them on the street. If you ask me, it's a deliberate agenda to destroy society here. California is a failed state for sure, and the L.A. of today bears no resemblance to the city that I lived in from 1987 to 2004. I lived in Miami for six and a half years after that, and I regret coming back in 2011. Perhaps if I hadn't, I might not have suffered the identity theft in 2012 that ruined the next decade for my mom and me, and not be where I am today. Just four months ago, the train would be relatively empty when I took it from Pasadena to Azusa at around 6:30 every morning. Now it is half-full of homeless people. You know they're homeless because they have tons of stuff with them and are all asleep, sometimes sprawled out across several seats. Compared to them, I travel light, carrying only a duffel bag and a small backpack -- both of which I guard with my life after my original ones were stolen on the train last year and I lost everything in them. This morning, there was a guy sleeping a few seats down from me, completely hunched over with his head between his knees. He woke up for a moment and made some jiggling motions which made it look like he was dancing, then went back to sleep. Moments later, he fell out of the seat and to the floor. He didn't even wake up or react, and just lay there in the center aisle. He was still there when I got off, and you'd have thought he had keeled over and died after someone had shot him. Last night, as I was riding the train from Monrovia to Pasadena, I suddenly smelled the stench of gasoline coming from the rear half of the car I was riding in. Three people then came into my half from the rear half, apparently to escape the fumes. I asked them, "Do you smell gasoline?" and one guy just pointed in the direction he had come from. I got out of my seat just enough to peek into the rear half and saw a guy sitting at the far end pouring liquid out of a bottle and on the floor. When I got to my stop, I got off and saw three Metro ambassadors on the platform. I went directly to them and told them, "There's a horrible stench of gasoline on that train and a guy with a bottle. Car 1148 B." One of the ambassadors said he'd report it. From his demeanor, I got the impression he wouldn't bother. I'm writing this sitting on a bench in a plaza beside the train's last stop in Azusa. This is where I spend the daytime on weekends when CHJ is closed. It's just after noon, and it's a nice and quiet area. Serene, even. During the day, that is. At night is another story. Homeless people sleep here, and some are out of their minds. I tried sleeping here once, and I encountered one guy pacing back and forth growling like a dog and was confronted by another who accused me of stealing his stuff. Hence why I sleep in Pasadena and play cat-and-mouse with the cops. When I got here today, there was an employee cleaning the area. I'd just gotten off the train, and as I passed him, he indicated some broken glass and other trash on the ground and asked me point blank, "Is this your stuff?" I was taken by surprise by the sudden question, and I said, "No, I just got here." Apparently, he didn't believe me, because he said, "This isn't a campground." I said nothing and continued on my way as he cleaned up the mess, and I went to a bench at the far end of the plaza. After I sat down, I thought about what he'd said and got angry. I had half a mind to go back and say, "What are you asking ME for? As I said, I just got here. Look at me. Do I look like a bum? I'm clean and I'm neat, and I don't litter or leave trash around. In fact, I often pick up other people's trash, and it pisses me off when I see trash on a bench or all over the ground and there's a trash can right there." But I thought better of it and decided it wasn't worth the time nor the effort. So I sat and relaxed for a while, and now I'm writing this. Most people don't realize I'm homeless because I look clean and neat and don't carry much with me. In fact, a few months ago, I struck up a conversation with two Metro ambassadors while riding a train, and at one point, one of them started complaining about the "unhoused" and how they were ruining the system for other commuters. We continued chatting until they got off, and they'd never have said anything about the unhoused had they known I was among them. I should have kept a diary, a log, of everything I've seen and experienced and suffered on the street for the past fifteen months, but I've documented a mere fraction of it all, and posted only a fraction of that here in this forum. But I've got an excellent memory and forget nothing, even when I want to, and perhaps I'll reveal it all in an autobiography or memoirs someday.

An addendum to the update I posted above, because this happened just a few hours after I posted it. On the train out to Monrovia after I left CHJ, a homeless guy came aboard in Pasadena and started smoking a cigarette. Smoking is illegal on the trains and in the stations. A man sitting at the end of the car saw him and reported it over the intercom. When the smoker realized it, he started cussing the man out and threatening him. They exchanged words and the smoker became more belligerent. The man got up and went over to the smoker and invited him to hit him. They squared off for a moment, then the homeless guy made a move and the man punched him in the face. Hard. The homeless smoker started whining about it and making more threats, but he got off at the next stop. The man who punched the smoker then turned to me and said, "I'm sorry about that, sir." I said, "Don't worry about it, I don't blame you." Then he went back to his seat. I found the whole thing disturbing and thought I was going to witness a terrible fight right there in front of my face. The entire time, I was trying to decide what to do if the situation really got out of hand -- get off at the next stop or flee into the next car. In just the past three days, I've already witnessed or been involved in enough incidents for several months. It's a nightmare. And every day, every minute, that the defense delays is a furtherance of the crimes committed against me and an unforgivable delay of the justice and compensation and restitution that I deserve. My award should go up for every day they delay.

I feel like I'm hanging by a thread lately. I simply can't do this anymore. I apologize if some of this seems a bit disjointed, but I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown last night and I'm trying to get my thoughts together and write about just a few of my most recent experiences living on the street.This nightmare started over two years ago, and I've been on the street for fifteen months now, and there seems to be no end in sight. Six months ago, I had the mental, emotional, and physical strength and energy to deal with all of this and keep going, to keep dealing with every aspect of my situation and hang on. But I've hit the wall. My reserves are depleted. I've been able to stay at a hotel whenever it's rained or been very cold thanks to GoFundMe donations, but the rest of the time, life on the street has worn me down completely. Worn me down in every way -- mentally, emotionally, and physically. Every night, I must wait until 1 AM to sneak into the park where I sleep and avoid the police crackdowns on the homeless. I wake up at six, and after waking up two or three times overnight to urinate and then falling asleep again, I probably get no more than three and a half hours of actual sleep. Night after night of this cat-and-mouse game with the cops and getting little sleep takes its toll and leaves me without enough wherewithal to handle everything else that comes my way. Such as the following incident. Two months ago, I woke up around 6 AM one morning as I usually do. It was still dark, and as far as I could tell, I was the only person in the park because no one else sneaks into the park at 1 AM after the cops stop searching. As I was packing up my stuff to take the train to Azusa, a guy suddenly appeared next to me. He was Hispanic and in his twenties, and he asked me in Spanish if the bathroom was working. I told him I hadn't used it so I didn't know. As I continued packing, he just stood there watching what I was doing, and I started to feel very uncomfortable. I tried to ignore him, wondering what he was up to, then he asked me what I was doing. I said, "I'm packing up to leave. I slept here last night." He said, "You slept here?" I said, "Yeah, but I'm leaving now." He continued watching me pack, then he suddenly asked, "Do you want me to suck your d*ck?" I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. I said, "What was that? I didn't understand you." "Do you want me to suck your d*ck?" he repeated. For a moment, I didn't even react. I was so taken back, so stunned and caught off guard. Then I said, "No." "You don't like it?" he asked. "No!" I responded, much more emphatically. I had no idea where things were going to go from there, and I quickly considered bringing out my stun gun, but he just turned around and took off. After he left, I must have stood there for at least a full minute, still in disbelief of what had just happened. Then I finished packing, thinking, "God, why do things like this happen to me? Why must I experience situations like this?" Fast forward to this past Tuesday night, I stayed at the north end of the park, where the police don't go when they raid the park, to wait until 1 AM before going to the bench where I sleep. Whenever they raid the park, it's always between 10 PM and 1 AM. Sometimes they come around once, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. But until now, they've ever come after 1, so I feel fairly safe going to sleep at that time. While I was waiting last night, around midnight, a homeless guy approaches me and starts to talk to me. He was Hispanic and spoke in Spanish, but I couldn't understand half of what he said because it sounded like gibberish. He invited me to take the train with him out to Santa Monica or East L.A. I politely told him that I always stayed in Pasadena for the night and that I didn't want to go somewhere else. For the next hour, he continued to insist over and over again, trying to convince me. An hour! I don't know how many times I politely declined, but he wouldn't take no for an answer and continued to try to convince. Three separate times he gave up and left, only to return less than a minute later and resume trying to convince me. As this went on for an hour, I got increasingly upset, angry, and scared, but I never showed it. I tried to remain as calm as possible and kept politely declining. I said things like, "Please, I really like staying around here and I don't want to go anywhere else tonight. If you want to go, go on ahead without me. Don't worry about me. Have a good time." But he just kept at it and at it. I couldn't believe any of this. I had already been feeling very down, and now I found myself in this situation and predicament. I never, ever would have anticipated anything like this, any more than when that other guy three weeks ago asked me if I wanted him to suck my d*ck. I considered just getting up and leaving, but with my aching feet I wouldn't have been able to get away quickly if he followed me. So I just sat there, feeling completely trapped and indecisive, praying for him to finally give up and leave. I started out asking God to make him go away, and as the time went on, I reached the point where I prayed, "God, is it too hard for you to just make this guy go away? Why is this happening? Get him away from me, please!" I have a stun gun and pepper spray in my duffel bag, but I don't want to use those unless absolutely necessary because I don't know how things may turn out if I do, so all I could do was continue to pray and continue politely declining the guy's invitation. At one point, he offered me a cigarette, and even though I told him, "No, I don't smoke. Never have. Thank you", he continued to offer it and insist about every five minutes. I was ready to explode, to scream, to do something, but I just sat there and continued to decline and to pray. He finally gave up and left and didn't return, and when I looked at the time, it was almost 1 AM. I just sat there for about ten minutes, still shocked by the whole thing and my head spinning, then I decided to get up and head for the bench, At that moment, a police car came into the park. I stayed where I was and watched as they circled around, then they stopped in front of a bandshell in center of the park and stayed there with lights on and engine running for fifteen minutes. Then they left. I waited another ten minutes or so, then got up and went to the bench. I was so frazzled by the whole thing that I couldn't even think straight. After a few minutes, I ended up setting up the bench to sleep and finally lay down. It was nearly 2 AM by that point, and I slept probably no more than three hours. When I rode the train the next morning, I actually got carsick and felt vertigo from the lack of sleep. Fast forward again to yesterday. I'm sitting in the park in Monrovia where I always have dinner before going to the Pasadena park where I sleep. It's just past 6 PM and I'd just finished dinner when a homeless guy walks into the park cursing and screaming. He walked around the park several times, then he saw me sitting at the picnic table and approached. I tried to ignore him completely, not even look at him or draw his attention in any way. He proceeded to walk around my table several times, cursing and screaming at me. For the first time, I brought out my stun gun, surreptitiously so he wouldn't see it, and was prepared to actually use it. I prayed to God to make him go, and after a couple of minutes, he walked off and left the park. After he left, I tested the gun and found out it wouldn't spark, it had lost its charge. Thank God I didn't have to use it. I've recharged it now at CHJ, where I'm typing this on their computer. After I left Monrovia and took the train to Pasadena, a homeless woman got on with a ton of stuff. I was the only person in the car, and she sat at the other end. Then she started arguing with some figment of her imagination, yelling and cursing at one of the seats as if someone had been sitting there. I prayed she didn't notice me and turn her attention to me. A couple of stops later, three people got on who were together, and one had a dog. The homeless woman started yelling and screaming at them and the dog started barking. The people tried to ignore them but she kept at it. One of them used the emergency intercom to report it. Then another homeless woman came in from the next car and started screaming at the first one to shut up and leave the people alone. The train stopped in between stations for about ten minutes, and I thought someone would come to deal with the situation, but no one did. Then the train started moving again, and the first homeless woman got off at the next stop. The entire time, I felt like I've been dropped into the pit of hell, surrounded by demons, with no way to escape. Like I'm trapped in a giant, open-air insane asylum with no walls. I just can't deal with any of this anymore. It's like I've finally run out of gas, like I've hit a brick wall. Things that I could do six months ago, I can't do anymore. My physical condition is nothing like it was just six months ago. I have little energy and a lot of aches and pains. My feet hurt like hell, worse than before. After not hurting for a few weeks, they're hurting now worse than ever. Both of them hurt equally, and every time I take a step and put my weight on them, they feel as if they are being crushed in a vice. Before, the pain was bad but I could deal with it, I could press on. Now it's crippling. I'm literally forcing myself to walk, at about a quarter my normal speed. I also tire very easily. Walking just one block leaves me out of breath, when back in August I walked 40 blocks one night through Pasadena without stopping once for a break. I'm also more sensitive to cold than my mother was even in her later years. I used to be able to tolerate the cold; now I shiver in 50 degree weather and it feels like 30 to me. Until now, I've been able to manage, to steel myself and bite the bullet and deal with my situation, and do whatever was necessary to get by day to day, one day at a time. Now I can't summon up the strength, I can't dredge it up anymore. Like I said, it feels like I've suddenly hit a brick wall. I'm exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically. I feel like a car that's been running on fumes for the past few months and has now completely run out of gas. Not a drop left in the tank. Now the defendants in my lawsuit, who were supposed to respond by yesterday, have asked for more time. If they want more time, I fear they're going to delay this for months and play hardball. If that's the case, I won't make it. I simply won't. I don't even know how I'm going to make it to next week. I simply cannot go on like this for weeks or even months more. I simply cannot do it. Like I said, I've hit the wall. There is no way I can survive until this lawsuit is resolved if it takes a lot of time. What are they planning to do, make up more lies to fight me and claim Molina did nothing wrong and that I deserve everything that's happened and don't deserve any compensation or justice? Damn these people to hell. They are going to be the death of me. It's as if they fatally wounded me more than two years ago and it's taken this long for me to slowly die. To top it all off, I am almost $500 in debt. With all the rain that's hit Southern California nearly every weekend for the past two months, I've been using Afterpay to book more days at the hotel and to buy new clothes and sneakers because my old ones were worn out. With Afterpay, you can split your purchases into four separate bi-weekly installments to be paid over a period of two months. I applied for General Relief for the third time and gambled I'd get it and be able to make all the payments, but they denied me yet again. So now I'm stuck, and this debt hanging over my head is adding to all the mental stress I already had. I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. Everything has taken a sudden nose dive lately. I've reached the point of panic these last couple of days and it seems things are going to get worse, not better. I feel I'm trapped with no way out. I've tried for months and months to cling to my faith and be strong, and for the most part I've succeeded, but now I suddenly feel like I'm drowning and I see no relief in sight. I am overwhelmed, and I am scared. All the anxiety I've held off and kept at bay has come down on me like a tidal wave, and I feel utter desperation.

I'm hoping there isn't a trial. If there is, this could take months to get resolved, and I don't know how much longer I can take living on the street. I hope they choose to settle relatively soon, as long as I get a sufficiently large amount. But even a settlement could take time to work out.

X

That's him. That's the bastard who did this to me, the hellspawn who destroyed my life and is responsible for everything I've suffered the past two years. So he spent all that time on that case and still couldn't close it and had to be replaced by another guy, yet he fabricated a false case against me and took it to the D.A. in a day without any investigation at all. This makes my blood boil to a degree I can't describe. The man is corrupt and evil, but his day is coming. My lawsuit will put the spotlight on him in federal court and I doubt his career will survive it. When he interrogated me, he told me I was full of sh*t and I was going to prison. He may be the one going to prison after all is said and done. Thank you for finding this article and posting it, Andromeda. I've brought it to the attention of my attorneys.

The links I provided earlier for court info on my lawsuit require either creating an account to view them or even paying, so here's a link to a copy of the pdf file of the filing documents: lazrojas.com/misc/CDOCdgf86ef1522b72_1710711778.pdf You can read the entire thing by just clicking this link.

You can see the information at these links: https://unicourt.com/case/urc-GBFR6I2IJA3UQGI5IJNGXEDOMZMRG0935 or https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/52615667/Rojas_v_City_of_El_Monte_et_al

My lawyers have filed the case. They called me last week to go over all the details and we spoke for almost two hours, then they filed it that very day. I wish I could attach a copy of the document here, but it's a pdf file. The complaint for damages reads like a laundry list -- false arrest, false imprisonment, unreasonable search and seizure, malicious prosecution, deliberate fabrication of evidence, due process violation, etc. If I were the defendants, I'd want to settle this as quickly as possible and avoid a jury trial.

I've had to go through this game of cat and mouse for the past several nights. They hit the park every night since last Thursday, when last year they'd do it only once or twice a month, if that. They haven't returned to the park after 1:00 AM on any of the nights, and I've been able to sneak back in and sleep after that, but as I said before, it's nerve-racking and stressful and I get only four hours of sleep max. It's inhuman, and especially for me, because I'm in the park only because of what was done to me and how they totally destroyed my life. To have to deal with this on top of everything else is absolutely obscene. Six months ago, before the cold weather, I had the energy and the physical ability to deal with life on the street. My circumstances sucked, but I could get through it one day at a time. Now my feet ache and my right leg hurts and I don't have the stamina that I had before. I can walk no more than at half the speed I used to, and simple things take more effort than before. Everything seems like an insurmountable burden. Even my duffel bag feels twice as heavy as it used to, even though it's not. There's more rain and cold coming later this week and again by the middle of next week, and I don't know where the hell I'm going to go to avoid it. Now I'm hearing that they want to make being homeless a crime. Can you believe that? The very system that ruined my life and made me homeless wants to punish me for being homeless. Why don't they just kill me and get it over with? They took everything from me except for my physical life, and I wish they'd taken that too. When they released me fourteen months ago, it was like kidnappers releasing a hostage by driving him out to the middle of nowhere and leaving him there with no food or water or any recourse. You cannot exaggerate how evil what they did to me, and what I'm still suffering as a result, is. You simply can't. Words fail. I seem to have but one choice: either keep struggling until all of this kills me, or finish myself off and avoid all the suffering between now and then.

I returned to the park Thursday night around 11:30 and sat on the bench and waited till 1:30. The cops didn't show up again, so I went to sleep. Woke up at 6:30 AM, half an hour after the park opens, so I guess they were bluffing about checking periodically and I called their bluff. Last night was a different story. They drove into the park at 9 PM and warned everybody to leave at 10. As I was walking out at 10, they drove in again, circled quickly and drove out again. I thought maybe that was it for the night, but I still sat at the nearby bus stop and waited until 11:30 before going back into the park. I went back to the bench where I sleep and decided to wait a while longer before risking going to sleep. At a quarter to 1 AM, I saw a police vehicle come into the park's driveway and stop. It didn't drive into the park, but as I watched, two officers got out with flashlights and turned them on. I got up and left the park in the opposite direction, then walked around the perimeter and came around the front. In the driveway were four police vehicles now, parked side by side, and several cops were searching throughout the park with the flashlights. I can't believe the lengths they're going to, that they're assigning this much manpower to drive the homeless out of the park. You'd think they were hunting some criminal who'd fled the scene of a crime and was hiding out in the park. It was absolute overkill, the worst I'd seen yet. I waited at the bus stop until they left, which was almost an hour later, then went back into the park and sat on my bench. I felt like a soldier caught behind enemy lines during a war, sneaking around and observing the enemy while trying not to be seen. I was pleased that I'd outsmarted them and managed to stay under the radar despite their efforts, but the whole experience was nerve-racking and adding insult to injury after everything else that I've endured for the past two years. I finally went to sleep and they never came back, but I slept for only three hours thanks to all the delay. Who can live this way?

I called my lawyers again yesterday and left another message on their voicemail. They finally responded this time, by email. They basically repeated what they told me back in early December, that they're finalizing the draft of my complaint and are going to be filing it afterward. More than two months have passed since they told me the same thing and things don't appear to have progressed. I really don't know what to think anymore. Earlier tonight, I went to the park where I sleep on a bench only to find the situation there worse than ever. The park closes at 10 PM, and the cops would sometimes come by between 10 and midnight and kick everyone out. Whenever they did that, I'd leave, wait an hour or so, and then go back and go to sleep on the bench anyway. They never came back a second time on those occasions. Tonight, two cops came up to me at 9 PM, shined a light in my face, and warned me to leave by 10. They also said they'd be back periodically to check, and that they'd cite anyone in the park after 10. This is the first time they've ever done that. They had no right to approach me and shine a light in my face when the park was still open. And if they do come back periodically, then I won't be able to return as I've done before. I stayed there till 10:30 and left to sit at a nearby bus stop bench to post this message, and as I left, their car returned to the park. They didn't see me, but now I fear they really will continue to check all through the night. This is what my life has become. I have no idea where I'm gonna sleep tonight or tomorrow night or any night from this point forward. What in God's name am I going to do? Where and how am I gonna get any more sleep? And if I hang around here and try to see if the coast is clear, it's gonna be a game of cat and mouse and the stress of wondering if they're gonna show up on any given night is gonna wear me down even more so both emotionally and psychologically. I can't imagine going through this night after night after night.

I've wanted to go several times, but I haven't dared do it for fear of what might happen. I really don't know what to expect if I were to just show up. It's reached the point where I'm going to ask the people at the Center for Health Justice if one of them will accompany me to be a witness.