Neighbors are angry and frustrated after a gardener was brutally beaten by a homeless man while he was working outside a home in Brentwood.
On June 23, Rodolfo Roman was working at a home on the 11900 block of Dorothy Street when a shirtless man suddenly walked over to him.
The man begins yelling at Roman while complaining about the noise from his lawn tools. When Roman asks him to leave, he quickly raises a large stick that he was holding in his hands and begins violently beating Roman, bashing him on the head and face repeatedly.
Roman falls to the ground while the attacker continues striking him. He lifts his arm to protect his face from the blows, but the man strikes his arm, eventually breaking it.
Roman was taken to the hospital where he received staples on his head for a large gash and a cast for his broken arm.
“I was very scared,” he told KTLA’s Jennifer McGraw. “My legs were shaking and I’m down on the ground.”
“This is my worst nightmare,” said Braden Yuill, whose home Roman was working on when he was assaulted. “He’s extremely upset. He comes every week and he’s just the most beautiful guy in the world and he was just covered in blood.”
“He hits him as hard as he can,” said Sean Heffron, a neighbor. “He hits him while he’s down, without conscience and at full strength.”
Heffron lives next door to a vacant property where the squatter was living. The home was reportedly abandoned by the owner after it burned down 10 years ago.
Since then, Heffron said the home has been attracting squatters and transients who have taken over the property and the street. Despite repeated calls to city leaders and law enforcement, residents said nothing has been done to solve the problem.
“This has been a living nightmare,” Heffron said.
Over the last several months, criminal activity at the abandoned home has reportedly increased, Heffron said.
“The police have been called multiple times,” Yuill said. “There was a fire there last week that the fire department had to come and put out. We’ve spoken to that landowner multiple times.”
Yuill said he’s even offered to buy the property from the landowner, but claimed there was no interest in selling.
“I’ve got two young kids and I’m scared for the neighborhood,” Yuill said. “This guy’s violent, he’s mentally ill and he needs to be taken off the streets.”
As Roman continues recovering, he said he’s hopes to be feeling better soon so that he can continue working again.
On Tuesday night, neighbors told KTLA the male suspect was located by authorities and taken into custody near Bundy Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard in the Sawtelle neighborhood. His identity was not released.
KTLA has reached out to the owner of the abandoned property and is awaiting a response.
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