This estimate by the reporter is congruent with what people in the adjacent communities, who have been afraid to use the Parkway’s Lower Reach for several years, have been telling the county all along, that illegal camping by the homeless is a large-scale problem encompassing settled, known encampments that are not being responded to by county park law enforcement.
It is a community tragedy that people are unable, for whatever reasons, to have a home to shelter them and their families; and that is why our Lower Reach Report of September 2005 www.arpps.org (news page), supports the Housing Now approach.
However, it is even more tragic that the people in the adjacent communities are not able to use their Parkway because of a justified fear of illegal campers, and the crime often associated with them.
An excerpt.
Parkway campers spooked
Latest slaying victim alarms riverbank's homeless denizens.
Ryan Lillis - Bee Staff WriterPublished 12:00 am PDT Saturday, September 9, 2006
For the people who spend the most time in the American River Parkway, word that a man had been found strangled on a worn path in the park this week was unsettling.
"Being out here by yourself is just scary," said Stacie Stevenson, one of an estimated 500 people who live off and on in illegal camps throughout the parkway. "Out here, people just do what they want to do."
The discovery of 34-year-old Daniel Jimenez Mendoza's body Wednesday marked the second time in less than two weeks that a homicide victim was found near the bike path that intersects Del Paso Boulevard, police said.
Mendoza had been strangled and also suffered "blunt force head injuries," a coroner's report stated, and police are trying to trace his final steps.
Mendoza was last seen Monday night leaving his Del Paso Heights home, driving a black 1988 Chevrolet pickup truck, said Sgt. Terrell Marshall, a Sacramento police spokesman. The truck was found near the bike path Tuesday by a parks department maintenance crew.
The next day, a man taking a bathroom break from a walk along the path stumbled across Mendoza's body, police said. Investigators do not know when Mendoza was killed or if a weapon was used, Marshall said.
Investigators do not believe Mendoza's killing was random and theorize there was "some kind of relationship between the victim and the suspect," Marshall said.
Mendoza's body was found on a dirt path leading to an abandoned illegal campground made up of wool blankets, a sleeping bag and several loose pieces of clothing. It was also less than 100 yards away from where the body of 62-year-old Rondal Raimer was found Aug. 28.
