OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) — Officers with the Oceanside Police Department were checking in on people living in homeless encampments on Wednesday morning.
“We try our best to help them out to get them off the streets, providing a variety of resources from housing to getting bus passes, trying to get them IDs,” Sgt. Ronald Vicent of Oceanside Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team said
Along with their normal checks, the team has an added message for people on the streets this month.
“The chief wanted to make sure that those people out there understand what has happened and educate what had happened,” Vicent said.
He's talking about the attacks on homeless individuals in the Oceanside area.
Two people were killed, and a third was stabbed.
"In response to these recent attacks, the Oceanside Police Department has increased their patrol throughout the city where unhoused individuals frequent. Officers from our Homeless Outreach Team will also be contacting individuals on foot in these areas to advise them of the recent attacks and provide resources,” Chief Kendrick Sadler of the Oceanside Police Dept said on Oct. 8.
ABC 10News was there earlier this month when Oceanside's Police Chief addressed the violence.
At the time,we also spoke to local advocates about the attacks' impacts on the homeless community.
"If you show up places for breakfast or showers every day, keep showing up because we want to see you. We want to see that you're okay. When you have some community, and you're visible, you're safer,” Holly Herring, a homeless advocate, told ABC 10News on Oct. 9.
Three weeks later, with no arrests, we tagged along with Vicent and officers with Oceanside PD on their outreach efforts.
"I have focused my encampment team to those areas where the two unhoused persons were found murdered. So we're continuing to go out to those areas and provide the resources and educate them what happened,” Vicent said. “Because somebody might have moved; moved into that location new and not know might not know what happened."
Vicent told ABC 10News officers are going to other nearby areas too.
He said that, in talking with his officers, they told him that people realize the dangers that come with being homeless.
"I mean, there is a concern of what happened, and that's led to us providing resources to people who probably wouldn't want it prior to this incident,” Vicent said.
There's hope and desire for more people to accept that help, even without this incident.
"We want to make sure we can provide them with the resources and get them to a new level of life they deserve,” Vicent said.
