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.

No family worth mentioning. They're in Miami, but my mother and I split from them over a decade ago. And after I was arrested, the DA's office reached out to them and told them I'd killed my mother. None of them will ever respond to me again even though all of it was a lie. What the police and the DA did to me and my life is beyond comprehension. As for the lawyers, I never paid them anything. They took the case on a contingency basis.

I think my lawyers have been stringing me along and taking me for a ride. It's been nearly seven months since I signed the contract with them and nothing seems to be happening thus far. After various attempts to contact them which went unanswered, they told me in early December that they were finalizing the draft of my complaint and filing it in January. I've made several attempts to contact them since early January and have yet to hear a thing. My emails and phone calls go unreturned. I have no idea what's going on, if anything is being done at all. After everything that was done to me and how my life was ruined to the extent of a lifetime of intellectual property being permanently lost, the only thing that could possibly happen that would be even worse is for me to never get justice, for the people who did this to never be held accountable and for me to never get any compensation or restitution for any of it. For my life to remain the way they left it, in ruins, and for me to have no path forward. Better to have simply been killed than to be left like this, in a complete and total limbo between a past that was erased and a future that is being kept from beginning. I feel like I'm neither dead nor alive, as if I were still in jail, everything suspended until when? When?

These godforsaken bastards broke every law they're supposed to uphold. There was NO basis for my arrest, no basis whatsoever. I was never even shown a warrant. There was no evidence that they mistakenly misconstrued or misinterpreted to believe I was guilty. They MANUFACTURED all the evidence, and somehow got the doctor to go along with it and make a false medical report which listed all sorts of physical injuries I'd supposedly inflicted on my mother. Fractured skull, spiderweb pattern, broken nose, and other things which NEVER existed at all. All of this came to light when the Medical Examiner's report came out ten months later showing NONE of these injuries existed. The entire thing was one BIG LIE, a total falsehood, slander and false witness. And I was arrested based on all this, stuff which didn't exist, and the case was filed the very next day with no investigation done at all. My mother and I used to watch Forensic Files on TV all the time, and there were murder cases where the cops and DA were convinced someone was guilty but had to wait a year or more for enough evidence to be gathered from the investigation to make an arrest. Yet I was arrested on the spot at the hospital waiting to hear about my mother, and the whole thing went into motion at the speed of light. At my arraignment, I was charged with "inflicting grievous bodily injury", because according to the detective, I had severely beaten my mother and caused the fractured skull, broken nose, etc. etc. etc. Of course, no such injuries ever existed, so I never inflicted any bodily injury of any kind. That didn't stop the judge from calling me a menace to society and cutting me off from both my own bank account and my mother's, or stop the prosecutor from telling me my mother was braindead and on life support and I'd be charged with second degree murder once they took her off the machine. This entire thing still makes my head spin and I wouldn't be able to believe it if it hadn't actually happened. Each day that passes, I get angrier and angrier. If it weren't for my faith in God, and for my refusal to break the law, I'd hunt these people down and annihilate them in cold blood. I have to allow the legal process, and the will of God, to deal with this obscene depravity, this abomination, and rectify it. But if this was 300 years ago, I'd challenge everyone involved in what was done to me to a duel at 20 paces and then shoot them all at ten, or if this was Old Testament times, I'd wipe them out and their entire families and keep everything they had as the spoils. When I talk about all this to anyone, I don't even call my arrest an arrest. I wasn't arrested, I was abducted and kidnapped, since there was no reason for an arrest. The entire basis was fraudulent, a pack of lies that was destroyed by the coroner's report and left the judge with no alternative but to toss the whole thing and let me go. Of course, even though they finally let me go, the damage had been done by then, and continues to be done to this moment. They destroyed my life, wiped out my past, and put me where I am now. And everything that's happened since I was set free is the consequence of this unbelievable abuse of power. Hence why I'm keeping my lawyers informed of everything I go through out here on the street, because the people who framed me owe me for all of that too, not just for the ten months in jail. It's all on them, every last bit of it, all of it caused by them and their actions. They terminated my life and replaced it with this nightmare, and they owe me a new life. When someone totals your car, they or their insurance company must pay to replace it. These monsters totaled my LIFE. It can't be salvaged or repaired, there's nothing left of it. It can only be replaced by a new one, at their expense.

First, the good news. I've finally retained a law firm to represent me in this fiasco. They are highly motivated, not only because of the enormity of what I've been put through and am still suffering, but because the son of one of their clients was shot and killed by El Monte police. They are filing my lawsuit in federal court next month. Federal, not state, court, which should make the case more significant and powerful. The bad news is that, while I'm finally over this hurdle, I have to survive until the suit is resolved, and life on the street is getting worse all the time. Things have gone steadily downhill in the time since my stuff was stolen on the train. They're rapidly getting worse and worse and I feel like I'm sinking into quicksand without a lifeline. It's just one thing after another, one thing after another. Would you believe I was robbed again? Yes, again, for the second time. On the same train line as before, a line I am never, ever going to travel on again, not for any reason whatsoever. The first time, it happened because I had dozed off. This time, I was wide awake. I was sitting in my seat next to a window, and my new duffel bag and new drawstring bag were on the seat next to me. The drawstring bag was atop the duffel bag, and my arm was over both, protecting them. As the train pulled out of the Little Tokyo station (which seems to be where the thieves attack), I was looking out the window. Suddenly, I felt the drawstring bag get yanked out from under my arm. I immediately looked and saw it was gone. I never saw the thief come or go, not even with my peripheral vision, nor did I hear a sound. I immediately grabbed my duffel bag and got up and searched the car I was in. There were five or six other people, and I looked at their belongings and under their seats. None of them had my bag. Then I went into the next car. My bag was there, left on a seat. I grabbed it and opened it and found that nothing was missing. I don't keep anything of value in it anyway, only a water bottle, a small pillow for sleeping, and various snacks. Everything else is in the duffel bag. The thief must have searched it quickly and then left it behind. From the moment he yanked the bag out from under my arm, to the moment I found the bag, no more than a minute elapsed. The guy struck like lightning, and I never saw him. I got off at the next stop and found security and told them what had happened, then also told Metro police. They both told me the same thing, that such incidents were on the rise and there wasn't much they could do about it except file reports. I got on another train and went back to Little Tokyo and got off when I saw a Metro ambassador there. I told him about the incident and he remarked that someone had stolen his backpack the week before. We both agreed that the action seemed to be centered around that station, and he said he'd file a report and recommend increased security there. While riding the trains has become so risky, sleeping in the park isn't much better. I've been sleeping there for three months now, and for the first half of that period, things were rather calm. It sucked, and it was cold, but it was relatively stable. Not very many homeless people around, and the area where I sleep was deserted overnight. Not anymore. Over the past several weeks, more and more people have been showing up at the park, unsavory people, drug users, nutjobs howling and screaming in the night, including one guy who howls like a wolf. And they all gravitate to the area where I sleep. There isn't a single night when I have any sort of privacy at all like I did before. They don't seem to sleep and they spend the night wandering around and prowling like lost souls. I wake up in the middle of the night to urinate and often find one or two of them no more than 20 feet away from me, just hanging around, and I wonder what they're up to while I sleep. I feel like I'm risking my life every time I close my eyes and curl up on that bench, but what can I do? I just pray to God to protect me while I'm asleep and completely vulnerable. Over and over, I get approached by people who ask me for drugs, or ask me if I want drugs. I tell them I don't do drugs, sorry. They walk away. I can't help but worry if one of these days my answer will piss one of them off. And I ask God, "Why, why have You put me here? You know the kind of person I am, the way my parents raised me, the way You have fashioned me. You know this isn't my environment, any more than jail was, that I'm not compatible with it at all, and that I don't belong here one single iota. Why am I here? Why am I being forced to endure and suffer all of this? What is the point? What is being accomplished?" What is being accomplished is the slow, gradual destruction of my psyche, and both my mental and physical health. I've lost all the weight I had regained during the months I was at the motel, and I'm thinner now than I was before. When I first left the motel in early July, I could hardly put on my pants, that's how tight they were. Now I could fit twice in them. Same goes for my pullover. The sleeves hang on me to the point the cuffs cover half my hands. The stress is killing me. Until recently, I was able to handle all of this. My mind and my faith were both strong enough to roll with the punches and keep functioning. But now it's become just too much. It's too much, everything that's happened since March 6 of last year, one thing piled on top of another with no respite, no mercy. I feel like someone continues to force my head under water and won't stop until I drown. A couple of weeks ago, as I sat on that park bench playing solitaire on my phone before going to sleep, a guy wandered over and said hello. So I said hi. Then he asked me if I was friendly. I didn't know what he meant by that, so I said, "What?" He asked again if I was friendly. I shrugged and replied, "I guess I am." He turned and walked off. About fifteen minutes later, he came back, sat down on the ground right next to the bench, and asked me if I was there looking for a sexual encounter with another guy. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. I said, "Look, I'm not gay in the slightest. Not at all. That's NOT why I'm here." I didn't bother to tell him why I was there, the whole story of how I'd ended up on a bench in the park. He was surprised at my reaction, and embarrassed. He said, "Oh, I'm sorry" and got up and quickly walked off. I never saw him again. But over the past week, I keep seeing guys wandering around and hovering nearby and occasionally watching me, and it seems this area has become, or was all along, a place where guys cruise looking for other guys. Last week, I started to develop urinary problems. Normally, I'd get up once or twice during the overnight to urinate, but over the past month the number of times started to increase. I didn't give it much thought because I know being in cold weather makes you urinate more, and I reasoned it wasn't any prostrate problem because I have a strong, steady urine flow and don't feel any restriction. But last week, my urination rapidly increased to the point where I had to go nine times in just one night, NINE times. On top of that, I developed flu-like symptoms and general body aches, forcing me to buy some Advil and take it. Two a day were enough to keep me going, but it was obvious to me that the toll all of this has been taking on me has reached crisis levels. This past weekend, Saturday and yesterday, were the worst. I woke up Saturday morning to find that I'd wet myself while sleeping the night before. It wasn't much, just enough to moisten my underwear and my pants. The last time I wet myself was before I started first grade, so we're talking 1967 or '68. And yet I wet myself now at the age of 60. I had to wait until I got to the Target in Azusa to duck into the bathroom and change my underwear and clean myself and my pants as thoroughly as possible with baby wipes. After that, I tried to take it easy for the rest of the day and stayed in a park next to the train station in Azusa which is always empty and very serene. But I had no peace, because every so often I got the urge to urinate and had to keep ducking behind bushes to go. Each time, only a little bit dribbled out. I considered the possibility I had cystitis, which would account for the urinary symptoms and the flu-like symptoms, and I've had cystitis in the past, but this time it was different. With cystitis, you have a burning or stinging sensation when you pass urine, but I had no such sensation. In fact, I barely had any sensation at all, as if my penis were under anesthesia, and it reached the point where I no longer felt the need to urinate. I could feel a few drops leak out every now and then with no prior warning, and even if I tried to hold them in and constrict my muscles, they leaked out anyway. This went on all weekend. Yesterday, I stayed in Azusa again, and at midday I went to a 99 cents store that's a 15 minute walk from the park. While shopping there, I got the urge to urinate, so I asked an employee if I could use the restroom. She said it was not in service. This was a lie, since they have restrooms for the employees, but they don't want people coming in off the street and using the facilities, so this is what they say. It's not fair to customers and it's an insult to the intelligence. Why not just say, "It's our policy that restrooms are for employees only"? Lots of other business WILL allow customers to use the restrooms but not anyone off the street. By yesterday, I wasn't in a good mood at all. After everything that's happened since March 6 of last year, and everything that's been going on recently, seemingly ramping up, I was about to take someone's head off, anyone. I asked the employee for the manager, and she said he was up front. So I went to see the man and asked to use the restroom. He started hemming and hawing, so I told him, "Look, I usually don't do this, but I have cystitis right now and I need to go. Do you know what cystitis is?" He said no. I said, "It's when you have an infection in your urinary tract. You get sudden strong urges to go that you can barely hold in. I need to use the restroom." He continued to dilly-dally, so I said flat out, "Look, I'm shopping here right now, and I shopped here last weekend and the weekend before that. I don't want to wet my pants in front of your other customers, and I don't think you want that either. I need to use the restroom. Now." He paused, then called over another employee and told him to take me back to the restroom. The rest of the day continued to decline, with my urinary symptoms getting no better. By evening, I left Azusa to return to the park in Pasadena where I sleep. When I got off the train, I did what I always do -- stop at the nearest bench, put my duffel bag on it, then put the drawstring bag on my back before picking up the duffel bag again and heading out. This time, as I put the drawstring bag on, someone came up behind me suddenly and yelled "Hey!" right in my ear. I I had a heart condition, I could have had a heart attack or a stroke. As it was, I jumped in alarm, and instinctively, without even thinking, grabbed my duffel bag so whoever it was couldn't grab and steal it. The guy who'd yelled came around in front of me, laughing like an idiot, as if he'd just played a practical joke on a friend instead of scaring a total stranger half to death, and asked me, "Do you smoke weed?" The guy's lucky I didn't pummel him to the platform or whip out my stun gun and put him down. I said, "NO, I don't use drugs!" He kept laughing and wandered off. I just stood there for a while, recovering and trying to calm down, and realized just how angry I was. After the illness and everything else this weekend, I felt half-delirious and wasn't thinking straight. I thought, "I'm in one of the levels of hell, surrounded by demons. Why am I here???" If I'd had a gun when that punk did that, I can't guarantee I wouldn't have pulled it out and either shot him or threatened to shoot him if he didn't get the hell out of my face. I left the station thinking, "I'm gonna end up like Charles Bronson in "Death Wish" or Robert DeNiro in "Taxi Driver" if these people keep getting in my face. By the time I reached the bench in the park, I had decided that I had to book a night at the motel again and get the hell off the street if only for 24 hours, so I could relax, take a bath, wash my hair, wash my clothes, and clean all my stuff, especially after having wet myself. It has been a whole month since the last time I was there for a one night pit stop and I desperately needed another pit stop. There's simply no way I could carry on without getting a break. So I checked my finances, and what with having to replace everything that was stolen a month ago, I barely had enough to book one night. If I did it, that would bring my bank account to only $50 and leave me nothing to pay my monthly Earthlink bill or my B of A monthly service fee after November. Then I remembered that my EBT card can be used to pay for food OR to withdraw EBT cash, and since there's enough accumulated in my EBT account to give me an extra month every month, I reasoned that I'd withdraw $50 in EBT cash and deposit it in my bank account. So I went ahead and made the reservation. When I went to the Azusa Target this morning, as I do every morning to use the restroom and buy my food for the day, I attempted to withdraw the $50. It wouldn't let me do it. I tried several times, but it simply wouldn't let me withdraw cash. I couldn't even call my social worker because all ,my EBT information, all the correspondence and paperwork I had from DPSS, was in my original duffel bag and was stolen along with everything else in it. So now I'm screwed, because I can't cancel the reservation, and even if I could, I wouldn't, because I simply cannot go beyond this week without a rest. I guess when I check into the motel tomorrow, I'll have to beg them not to take their usual security deposit, otherwise my bank account will get wiped out and I have no idea how I'm going to get anything else done past this week anyway.

My life has become an extended, never-ending Twilight Zone episode. Ever since my stuff was stolen two weeks ago, things have gotten worse..Although I was able to replace most of my stolen things, including the phones, more things that I'd never have expected continue to happen , and it feels as if I'm under a curse This past weekend was the weekend from hell. After not encountering him for the past three weeks, the guy who crossed the tracks at the Irwindale Metro station and harassed me showed up again. Four separate incidents; two on Saturday and two on Sunday, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon. I spent both days fleeing from him and filing reports with three different police departments as he followed me from city to city. Saturday morning, I was sitting at the Irwindale station passing the time after buying food at the Azusa target store. After a couple of hours, he got off a train on the opposite platform and apparently immediately recognized me, because he walked to the end of the station and crossed over to my side. As he approached from the distance, I wasn't sure it was the same guy from three weeks ago; but as he got closer, I realized it was him. I prayed he wouldn't confront me, to no avail. He stopped about 25 feet away and started haranguing me just as he'd done during the earlier incident, spewing paranoid and vulgar rants that made no sense whatsoever. "Why don't you leave me alone?" I asked him. "I'm not bothering you in any way, I'm just sitting here. Just leave me alone." He responded that he knew I was there to spy on him and that he was going to "take me out". I told him, "There are cameras here. Law enforcement is watching." He replied, "I don't give a f*ck. I'm gonna take you out." I grabbed my things and got up and moved past him as quickly as I could so I could reach the station entrance, where a red emergency call box is located. I didn't realize at the time there was another box just a few feet in the other direction. As son as I reached the box, I pushed the button. As I waited while the line rang, he started to advance towards me. No one answered the call yet, so I gave up and crossed to the opposite platform to get away from him and call from the box there. As I made the call, he crossed the tracks and continued coming towards me. I glanced at the screen that shows the ETA for the next train and saw it was due in just one minute, so I abandoned my second attempt at a call and ran towards the far end of the platform, hoping the train would arrive and I'd get aboard before he closed the distance and reached me. The train arrived, and as I got on, I looked back. He had stopped halfway up the entrance ramp because three other people had entered the station, and he just watched as I got on the train. I rode the train to the next stop, Azusa Downtown, and got off. The Target store I had been at earlier is located right next to the station, and there's always a Sheriff's department car parked outside. I went to the car planning to tell the deputies what had just happened, but there was no one in the car. So I went back into the station and called from the red emergency box there. I explained what had just happened at the Irwindale station and was told two deputies would be sent out to that station. I crossed to the other side hoping to catch the next train back to Irwindale and hoping both the guy and the deputies would be there so I could point him out to them. But the next train was due in 12 minutes, and by the time I got to Irwindale, the guy was gone and there were no deputies around. Three Metro Ambassadors got off the same train, though, and I went to them and told them everything that had happened. They told me they would file a report and suggested I download the Transit Watch app from the Google Play store and install it on my phone. With it, I could submit a report on the incident and also call for help during an emergency. I thanked them and got on the next train. I downloaded the app aboard the train, but I got off two stops later at the Monrovia station and sat on a bench on the platform to make the report. I wrote out a detailed account of the incident, answered all the questions, and submitted it. Just then, a train arrived and the same guy got off it! He saw me and walked right past me, ranting as usual, and stopped bedside the red call box between me and the station exit. And he stood there, blocking my access to the box and continuing to rant and threaten me. Among the things he said was, "I don't want to see your ass at Irwindale nor more. Keep your ass out of Irwindale." Just as I had done at Irwindale earlier, I grabbed my things and moved past him and out of the station. There's a park directly next to the station which you enter as soon as you come off the ramp, and there were two women from Jehovah's Witnesses there to hand out material. I approached them and said, "Do you have aphone? I need you to call 911 for me. I have a phone but I put it away and I'm too nervous to use it." I explained what had been happening, and they quickly called 911. For the next 20 minutes or so, I repeated my report to the police four or five times as I was transferred from one department to another. During this, the guy stopped at the entrance to the park and stood there, watching both me and the women. They began to get scared, but after a while, he went back up the ramp and we couldn't see him anymore from our angle. The police asked me for a description of him and I gave it to them. Then they told me they were sending two deputies out and asked me for my own description so they could find me quickly. After the call ended, the women said they need to leave and did so. After they were gone, I peeked down the station platform and the guy wasn't there. He'd gotten on one of the trains that had passed during the call, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The deputies arrived about 15 minutes later and I recounted the incident to them. They were concerned but told me there really wasn't much they could do because these had been chance encounters that didn't rise to the level of stalking. They also advised me to be careful and keep my eyes opemn, and to call 911 immediately from my own phone if I ran across him again. By now, it was noon. All of this had happened within an hour span that morning. I spent the rest of the day trying to follow my normal routine and recover from the ordeal. At night, I went back to memorial Park in Pasadena where I sleep on a bench and went to sleep around ten o'clock. Sometime later, during the wee hours, I suddenly woke up. I had never woken up that way before. There was no transition between being asleep and arousing. One moment I was sound asleep, the next I just opened my eyes, fully conscious. There was another man standing right in front of the bench, mere inches away, looking down at me. I didn't even get a look at his face, because as soon as I opened my eyes, he turned and quickly walked away and out of the park. I couldn't believe it, and I wondered what he might have done had I not woken up at that moment. I also felt that God had made me wake up so that I'd catch the guy in the act and prevent whatever might have happened. I prayed for His protection and then went back to sleep. The next morning, Sunday, I followed my normal routine. Bought food at the Asuza Target, then went to Irwindale to pass the time. Despite the two encounters I'd had with that lunatic the day before, I was feeling more angry than scared. I thought, "Who the hell is he to tell me where I can and cannot be? And if I really have faith in God, then I must trust that no harm will come to me. This guy cannot hurt me unless God wills it, and if God doesn't, it won't happen. God controls this, not the guy or anyone else." With that confidence, I sat on the same bench again. But just in case, I dug out a pair of scissors I have in my duffel bag and placed them on top of everything else for quick and easy access. There were also two rocks on the bench and I wondered who would put them there and why.I thought about David and Goliath, and I planned on using the rocks as self defense should the scissors fail. About an hour later, two Metro ambassadors got off a train on my side of the station and remained by the vending machines at the entrance. A while later, the guy got off another train. I tensed up, thinking, "Here we go again!" He saw me, but he didn't approach me. He remained at the entrance, near the two ambassadors. After some time, the ambassadors got aboard another train and left. Then the man started to approach me. r Remembering what the deputies had told me the day before, I thought, "If THIS doesn't rise to the level of stalking, what does? Every time he sees me, he confront and threatens me, and he just now bided his time and waited for the ambassadors to leave before making his move." Unlike the day before, when he stopped about 25 feet away from me, he walked all the way to me and passed in front of me and then stopped about ten feet to my left -- right between me and the red call box at the middle of the station. He said, "I want your ass out of Irwindale. I don't want to see your ass in Irwindale any,more." Despite my earlier resolve not to be intimidated by him, despite my having the scissors and the rocks, and despite my desire to stand fast in my faith and in God's protection, I jumped onto the first train when it arrived and escaped. As I rode the train, I castigated myself for fleeing. I felt like a coward, and I felt I had shown a lack of faith. I got off at the next Station, Duarte, to report this new incident on the red call box there, but the two ambassadors who had been at Irwindale and who he had waited until they'd left were there. So I told them what had happened, and about everything that had happened the day before. They asked me, "Was he the guy who was standing near us?" I said yes, and they said they'd file a report and that they knew what the guy looked like. They also said they'd recommend that these stations be watched more and that security be increased. I spent the rest of the morning afternoon trying to resume my normal routine and not allow all this to rattle me, and I went back to the Irwindale in the afternoon. I sat there for three hours and was planning to leave in about another half hour when three Metro ambassadors got off a train. My first impulse was to tell them about all the incidents, but then I thought it would be redundant after all the reports I'd already made to three police departments. But after a few minutes, another train arrived and the guy guy off. Just like before, he saw me and started to approach me, then he stopped and sat on a bench between me and the station entrance. The ambassadors were at the far end of the opposite platform. I grabbed my stuff and quickly walked past him to go to the ambassadors, and as I passed him, he said, "Why are you hanging out around here, old man? I told you I don't want to see your ass around here." I reached the ambassadors and quickly told them everything that had happened since the day before. One of them went with me halfway down the platform to get a closer look at the guy, and he said, "Okay, we know what he looks like. We'll include that in our report. If we see him again, we'll take a picture of him." The guy watched us, then got aboard the next train and left. Four encounters in two days. As a writer, it would never have occurred to me to write a story like this and have all these things happen to the protagonist, but this is what my life has become. As I write this, I have absolutely no idea what's yet to come, what more may be in store. Nothing would surprise me at this point, which is why I've just ordered a stun gun and pepper spray from eBay which I should receive by Friday, before the weekend. I don't want to be caught unarmed should I come across this lunatic again. For all I know, he may be all talk and never actually attempt any physical violence, but he's obviously disturbed and I cannot predict what he might do if the situation goes further or what he's capable of. I admit that if I'd been armed with a gun yesterday, I would have shot him without hesitation. For now, though, the police departments of Azusa, Irwindale, and Monrovia, as well as Metro police, all know about this guy, and hopefully there'll be increased security.

I don't even know what to say right now, how to put it, I'm barely holding it together. Thank God for the Center for Health Justice where I was able to come now after what happened this morning, in whose office I wrote and posted the update to this forum yesterday. This morning, my duffel bag was stolen as I rode on the train. Everything I had is gone. What little I had left was in that bag and it's all gone. Two phones and a tablet, which I received not two weeks ago along with free phone and internet service as government relief, are gone, along with everything on them. Important information, passwords, even my mother's death certificate. Everything that I've been carrying for these months which kept me going, which helped me survive from day to day, all gone. I thought I was back at square zero before; where am I now??? All I have are the clothes I'm wearing. I don't even know where I'm going to sleep tonight without any of my stuff. I have absolutely no plans or idea what to do from this point on. things were bad enough as they were, but today their even worse. Today makes what I described in my update seem like a picnic. This is too much, just too much to happen to one person. I still couldn't wrap my head around everything that happened before over the past year and a half, now THIS. Pray for me. Please pray for me. I can't believe any of this is happening. It's so overwhelming I feel as though my mind is going to short circuit from the stress. I simply cannot believe any of it is actually happening, but it is. I don't know if it's worth trying anymore. For what? Why keep trying when a setback like this just comes out of nowhere and wipes everything out again. Why?

Update: I wouldn't wish my life on my worst enemy. This is what my life has been like for the past month. During the day, I kill time by riding back and forth on the MetroRail trains, or by sitting at a station and watching the trains go by. At night, I sleep on a bench in a park, averaging about four hours of sleep a night. At first, riding the trains seemed a good way to pass the time and have someplace to be, until I realized the police and sheriff department are cracking down on homeless people. On one occasion, they made me get off the train, and on another, they made me get off the train, then made me pay again to get back on it. Now, I don't look like a homeless person. I'm clean shaven, my hair is neatly trimmed, my clothes are clean, and I only carry a duffel bag with me -- since all I have left in this world after the police destroyed my life and made me lose everything fits into a single duffel bag. I look like any typical commuter. But somehow they know, probably through some form of profiling, and I get victimized by these fascist tactics. A week ago, I stopped off at a Target store in Azusa to buy food, then got back on the train to Pasadena. But I decided to kill some time at the station in Irwindale, because it's the least busy station and a quiet spot to pass the time. When I got off the train there, there were only three people at the station -- myself, and two deputies. The deputies were at the far end of the platform and walking away from me down the exit ramp. So I sat on a bench. They must have had eyes in the backs of their heads, because not two minutes later, they were right beside me. One was a woman, the other a man. The woman stood in front of me and asked me if I was okay. The man stood a bit to the side and watched as if ready to act should I pull out a weapon. I couldn't for the life of me understand why they doubled back and came all the way down the platform to ask me anything, when I had just arrived and all I was doing was sitting there, so I replied, "Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be?" Then she asked me, "Are you going to get on the next train?" My first impulse was to say, "Maybe, maybe not. Why should you care? Am I doing something wrong?" But then I thought, I already have enough trouble as it is and don't need any more. So I answered, "I suppose so." Would you believe they remained standing there for fifteen minutes until the next train arrived? When it did, I got aboard, wondering what would have happened had I stayed on the bench. The entire time I sat there, I felt intimidated and abused. They had no right to even approach me when all I was doing was sitting there like any regular commuter. As far as I'm concerned, they invaded my personal space and infringed upon my personal liberties, and I did nothing whatsoever to warrant it. Supposedly, I've been a free man since January 9, but I don't feel free. I was under less scrutiny when I was in jail. It is a disgrace that after everything I've endured since March 6 of last year, and everything that was inflicted on me, I should be dealing with this sort of thing. The abuse of power that put me in jail in the first place continues even after exoneration and release, and I continue to suffer in its aftermath. It feels like I'm caught behind enemy lines during a war, and something as simple as riding a train or waiting at a station could lead to a situation that I never would have envisioned. That's what my life is like during the day. Nights are not much better. The police show up in the park sometimes to chase me out of there as well. One night, I was sitting on a bench playing solitaire on my phone when a patrol car came into the park. The police shined a light in my face and ordered me to leave, else they'd have to give me a ticket. So I left, with absolutely no idea where to go or what to do. I walked around the area for about an hour and returned to the park only to find them still there, so I continued to walk around. When I went back again, they were no longer there. But before I could reach the bench, they showed up yet again, and I was forced to hide inside some playground equipment, a small mock train that small children play in, until they left. Needless to say, this is nerve wracking for me. Having to play cat and mouse with the police as if I were a criminal on the run just to get some sleep is something I never would have conceived of, yet that is the situation I find myself in. And the only reason I'm in the park in the first place is because the police framed me and ruined my life. This is beyond sheer irony. It's beyond outrageous. It's an abomination. But the police are just one factor hampering my attempts to sleep. The weather is another. Regardless of how warm it might be in the daytime, the nights can get quite chilly. Sometimes so much so that I actually shiver. But this past holiday weekend was a nightmare, because a storm system came in and it rained all Friday night and through much of Saturday. I wasn't able to sleep a wink that night because it was impossible to be outdoors without getting drenched, so I had to find a place to duck into. I tried the train station right next to the park, but the ceiling has openings in it through which the rain got in, and even the benches were wet and impossible to sit on. So I ended up hiding all night in the park's playground, crouching inside the same mock train that I hid from the police in. But that was nothing compared to what happened the following night. The rain stopped Saturday evening and I was able to go to sleep on the bench. But at some point during the wee hours, someone shook me awake suddenly as I slept. I was in a deep sleep at the time, and I was so groggy I didn't know what the hell was going on. I looked up and all I could see was a man towering over me and staring down at me. It caught me completely by surprise, and I heard him ask, "Who are you?" My brain still hadn't kicked into gear and I just stared up at him and said nothing, so he asked me again, "Who are you?" I scrambled for something to stay, and I didn't want to give him my name, so I said, "I'm just me." He said something I didn't understand, then walked away. I waited until he was out of sight before I tried to go back to sleep, but it was quite a while before I was able to do so. That incident was disturbing enough, but it was just a prelude for what happened later on Sunday. That afternoon, I decided to kill some time at the Irwindale train station again, the same station where those two deputies harassed me a week earlier. As usual, the station was empty most of the time, so I sat down and played solitaire on my phone. After about a couple of hours, I saw a homeless man get off a train that had stopped at the platform opposite me. He didn't leave the station and sat down on a bench some distance away, apparently intending to kill time just as I was doing, so I continued playing solitaire. After a while, however, the man got up and sat down on a bench directly across from me and started to say something. I couldn't make out what it was, and at first, I thought he was talking to himself. But he got louder and insistent, and I realized he was addressing me directly. So I ignored him and continued to play as if I wasn't aware of him, hoping he would lose interest and stop. He didn't stop. Instead, he got up, jumped off the platform onto the tracks, crossed the tracks, then climbed onto my platform and sat down right next to me and started to berate me with a tirade of vulgar and obscene ranting. Among the things he shouted at me were demands that I get my dick out of his head. I won't even repeat the other things he said. The minute he started crossing the tracks, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I never would have expected anything like this at all. I was so stunned by it that I literally didn't know what to do, and I just sat there trying to ignore him. That just made him more insistent and belligerent, and I felt trapped and scared. I thought of getting up and leaving, but I feared he would simply follow me and perhaps even get physically violent. If he had been compelled to actually cross the tracks to get in my face, there was no telling what he was capable of. This went on for two or three minutes, during which I sat there basically paralyzed into inaction and praying to God to protect me and make him go away. At one point, he shouted, "I don't care if you have a Uzi in there" -- referring to my duffel bag -- "I'll take you out! You wanna fight me? You wanna fight me? I'll take you out!" I finally spoke to him and said, "Look, I don't want any trouble. Please leave me alone." He continued threatening me and berating me as if he hadn't heard me, but then a train arrived at our platform and he broke off and got on the train. As I watched the train leave, I was relieved the situation had ended so abruptly, and I went back to playing solitaire and tried to recover. About fifteen minutes later, a train arrived at the opposite platform and the man got off it. He must have gone only two or three stops and then caught a train in the opposite direction and doubled back. He immediately came over to me again and picked up where he'd left off. I was completely stunned, unable to believe this was happening on top of what had already taken place. But before I could think of what to do, a train arrived at our platform and I got up and quickly boarded it. He didn't follow me, but I was literally shaking as I sat on the train and left him behind. After the events of this weekend, I feel shell shocked. Whenever I see someone nearby, I bristle, because I don't know what to expect. They might be the nicest person in the world, or they may want to harm me. I just don't know; I can't read their mind. And I tense up whenever someone walks in my direction, because I can't help but feel they're going to confront me, and it's a relief when they pass by without incident. I used to live a normal life in a safe and secure environment. That was all destroyed last year. First, I found myself in jail, a place completely inimical to me and that I never should have been in. Now I'm out, but again I find myself in an environment where I don't belong and which I have no experience handling. This nightmare didn't end when they released me from jail eight months ago. It just took on a different form, and continues uninterrupted to this day. Because everything I'm going through, everything that's happening, each and every single day, is the direct result of what they did. And it won't end until it is rectified in some manner, until they are held accountable and I am compensated for their malicious and unconscionable abuse of power and the heinous injustice they committed against me. Only a lawsuit will accomplish that, it seems, because even my application for General Relief was denied by the county. I can think of no one more entitled to GR than me, as my current situation is the result of the corrupt and criminal actions of county employees.

After months of trying to obtain a civil rights attorney to help me file a lawsuit over my false arrest and imprisonment and the destruction of my life that they incurred, the only lawyer who gave me an appointment and agreed to look into my case eventually changed his mind and decided not to help me. His only advice was to continue looking for a lawyer. I've contacted dozens and he was the only one to respond positively at first. All the others either never responded or told me unbelievably that what was done to me didn't justify their involvement. Who the hell else am I supposed to contact who will actually want to help me and won't fink out afterwards? It is inconceivable that in this country, a 100% innocent man can be completely framed by the authorities, have his entire life destroyed, have the case against him thrown out ten months later when the truth comes out and shows the charges and allegations against him were fabricated and false, be released and set free with nothing left to his name, and then be unable to get anyone to help him sue and obtain some measure of justice and compensation for all he was put through and forced to lose. My civil rights were violated in numerous ways, as were my constitutional rights and my basic human rights, and yet no civil rights attorney will champion my cause. My case encompasses multiple aspects and consequences and damages, each of which is sufficient cause and basis for legal action. I could literally file a separate lawsuit for each of them, or one big one that includes everything. But the criminals who did this to me so gratuitously and maliciously are not held accountable; and me, the victim of their egregious abuses of power, cannot find anyone to help me get any compensation and be able to build a new life. It's absolutely obscene and incomprehensible. I have a huge civil rights case and no one wants to touch it. If someone totaled my car, they'd have to pay for it, or their insurance company would have to. If neither did, I'd take them to court and I'd be awarded damages. These people totaled my LIFE and left me with nothing, and there's nothing I can do about it? The crimes against me continue to this day despite my release and I have no remedy and no recourse. I've been living on the street again for days now with little food and without any sleep at all. I don't know which will do me in first, lack of food or lack of sleep. No one can go on this way for long without succumbing to one or the other. If this weren't happening to me I would never ever think it was possible, but it's come down on me like a curse. I wish to thank everyone here who donated for extending my life for a few months, but I don't have much hope for the future anymore and it's only a matter of time before I reach the end. This has crushed my soul and destroyed my faith, and when it comes, death will be a relief and an escape from this horrific nightmare.

A lawyer finally responded positively to me and gave me an appointment to see him yesterday. I went to see him and came away totally disillusioned and depressed. Despite his initial desire to help me, he told me my case is one of the most difficult to prove. That in itself blew me away and shattered my entire outlook on this, because everyone else I've explained my case to who isn't a lawyer considers it a no-brainer. They can understand and appreciate the enormity of what was done to me and all that I endured, and the many aspects of my case and all that it encompasses. Does the law not address any of these issues? I don't even know why he had me come in if he's so doubtful about the prospects. He's well aware of the details and issues of my case, because as part of my communications with him I sent him the same recounting of them that I posted on my Facebook and my YouTube, the very same words that compelled Dynamo to repost them here on the Doomworld forum and compelled members to whom I am forever grateful to send me $8500 in donations in less than a week. Since he's the only attorney who's responded after reading that, I thought he understood, and that he both wanted to help me and believed that he could. He asked me how much money I would like to get, and I replied that although no amount of money can ever truly make up for what I've suffered, and that although people have told me to sue for a hundred million, I'd be satisfied with only five. He told me he probably can't even get that much for me. This is mind boggling, because there are people who sue over car accidents who get at least hundreds of thousands, and I'm dealing with the destruction of the life of an innocent man and all the emotional, psychological, physical, and financial damage that was inflicted on me. In the end, he didn't agree to represent me, and he told me he has to get the case file from my PD before he makes a decision. He left me with the distinct impression that he doesn't really believe me nor in my case, and that whatever the file says is more important than everything that really transpired and my testimony of all of it. I don't need to prove anything, because the case and its many issues speaks for themselves. And the authorities can't prove anything against me because all of the charges and accusations were false, a total fabrication and a fraud, which were disproven by the medical examiner's report. That's why the judge dismissed the case and set me free, and that act alone is an admission that they were in the wrong. There can be no debate about any of that at this point, and the only issue that needs to be resolved is just how much money I should be awarded as compensation. Yet it seems my prospects for a resolution are slim, or that I'm faced at the very least with an uphill battle. Next Thursday, I have to leave the motel where I'm currently living because I no longer have enough money to stay any longer. I'll be back on the street with nowhere to go and little if anything to eat. All of the progress I've made over the past few months, including regaining my health, is going to be lost. I can't begin to describe how disillusioned and wounded I feel. I may be a free man again, but nothing has been resolved, and I continue to suffer and be victimized with no justice or compensation. I am stuck in a limbo with no resolution and no path forward, my past completely wiped out and my future held in abeyance. What little safety and security I've had the past few months will come to an end soon, and the only solid ground I've had beneath my feet since this nightmare began fifteen months ago is going to vanish before I get any remedy at all. And the people who did this to me go on with their lives with no accountability. If it weren't for people like the members here who've reached out to help me, I'd truly lose all faith in humanity and in this world.

Another update. Although I've recovered from whatever illness I had (probably covid) and gained back the weight I had lost, I'm now suffering from a delayed reaction to the illness. I developed a case of acute telogen effluvium a month ago and I've shed about 75% of my hair. From what I've read on the internet, this happens to some of the people who recover from covid. Hopefully it'll grow back in time, but right now I look like someone who's undergoing chemotherapy or suffering from radiation poisoning. But that's the least of my worries. Although I've contacted numerous lawyers, I still haven't found one willing to handle my case. I would have thought any lawyer would jump at the chance to take it on, but so far I've gotten no results. One firm even told me my case has no merit and that nothing about it justifies their involvement. This is absolutely incomprehensible to me. How can anyone say this? The enormity of the crimes committed against me is obvious and indisputable, and I have multiple foundations for a lawsuit. If the monsters who did all of this to me not be held accountable, and should I not be compensated for any of it, then there truly is no justice in this world. They will have succeeded not only in completely destroying my past, but in sabotaging and aborting my future as well. My money is running out and in two weeks I'll be back on the street like I was earlier this year, a situation I thought I'd left behind and would never be in again.