Hermosa Beach officials are scrambling to reassure the community following three recent incidents of alleged crimes committed by homeless people in the city that created widespread outrage on social media.
City Manager Suja Lowenthal, entering her second week on the job, announced at the City Council meeting Tuesday night that she would call a community meeting, tentatively scheduled for sometime next week, to address concerns associated with the three suspects arrested over the past month, all of whom police said was homeless.
Lowenthal’s comments followed the release of a letter last week from Capt. Milton McKinnon, who is serving as acting chief of the Hermosa Beach Police Department while Chief Sharon Papa is on medical leave. McKinnon’s letter addressed the action the city had taken in response to the incidents, and the constitutional and statutory protections that limit how long an arrestee may be detained, but these failed to quell social media concerns about those arrested reappearing in the city.
Lowenthal sought to navigate between defending the city’s response so far and promising that more was being done while McKinnon, who also addressed the council, spent most of his remarks laying out what happened in each of the three arrests.
“The letter that was sent out recently really was just to address for our community members what the process is from the time of arrest and what to expect, and in no way suggested that there was nothing else being done about these incidents or to address potential incidents such as these,” Lowenthal said.
In the first incident, Scott Walker, a 28-year-old Hermosa transient, was arrested Sept.1 after allegedly throwing empty beer cans at beachgoers, McKinnon said. Although he said that there had been reports on social media that Walker had “punched a female,” the responding officers did not have any evidence of that. The officers determined that Parker needed medical attention and took him to a hospital, from which he was later released.
Then, on Sept. 14, Hermosa police arrested Parker again, this time at South Park on suspicion of lewd conduct. A statement from police following Parker’s arrest said that police responded to reports of a man masturbating, but McKinnon said Tuesday that “at no time were Parker’s genitals exposed to the public.”
If they had been, Parker could potentially have been charged with indecent exposure. While both indecent exposure and lewd conduct are misdemeanors, the former can require registration as a sex offender, while the latter generally does not. Multiple social media commentators asked that Parker be registered as a sex offender, a decision made by courts, not police departments.
“I respect the HBPD and I know we have laws that work against us. What I want to see is Scott Parker go through the system so he gets the title Sexual Offender because that’s what he deserves,” Christine Shultz wrote on the Hermosa Beach Forum, a local issues Facebook page.
McKinnon said that police continued to monitor Parker after he was released for the second time and that as of Tuesday evening he was no longer in the city. He will be due in court later this year on the lewd conduct charges.
The second incident took place Sept. 18 at the Community Center. A man stood on the building’s second floor, yelling and screaming and at one point holding a metal bench over his head. Staff got the man to leave, but he said he would return with a firearm. Hermosa police subsequently arrested Buck “Cain” Williams on suspicion of making criminal threats. He is now being held at Twin Towers correctional facility in downtown Los Angeles and is due in court next week.
As with the other incidents, McKinnon lamented the way that information had spread on social media and said that those with concerns were better off contacting the department directly.
“We don’t always see the information shared there. If you want the police to do something, it’s not the place to put it. We urge that you call us,” he said.
In the third incident, police received a call Sept. 13 from a woman who said that a man had inappropriately touched himself in front of her while she was at the downtown Starbucks with her children. Although the woman did not want the man to be arrested, police contacted the man, later identified as Sergey Zemskov . They discovered Zemskov had outstanding misdemeanor warrants associated with past alleged thefts, and arrested him.
The third arrestee is also not a sex offender, McKinnon said. But images that posters claimed depicted Zemskov in the city after his arrest prompted more resident concern, including that the man was a threat to children coming and going from school.
“This is absolutely ridiculous that HBPD is letting this creep walk around freely. Are we supposed to just sit back and wait for him to harm someone’s kid?” wrote Angelina Siberna.
Lowenthal said that the city was continuing to address issues associated with the homeless, including in its five-year homelessness plan, approved by the council in July, which contained a section addressing “Ensuring Community Safety.”
“While the city’s long-range homelessness plan continues to be a work in process in collaboration with our regional partners and long-term service providers, there are no simple solutions when it comes to homelessness and mental well being,” Lowenthal said.
McKinnon said that he understood the concern that parents have for their children, but cautioned that rumored responses he had seen on social media, like arming children with pepper spray for their walk to school or taking the law into one’s own hands, would only make things worse.
“What I fear will end up happening is that some member of our community will get arrested because they’re amped up because of something that they read on social media. And their life and their family’s life will be impacted…People need to take a deep breath and give us the opportunity to do what we do best,” McKinnon said.
