I have a few Google news filters that are odd. Take this one for instance... ~homeless ~gasoline ~murder. I added it a year ago after a homeless man told me Asian gangs were trying to burn him alive. I laughed at his story, and then I bought him a few cheeseburgers. I added the news filter a few days later. There have been a few nasty hits on this combination of search terms since then, but none as disturbing as this story.
Then last week, someone threw gasoline from a red canister on the homeless man who seemed rooted to the corner of 3rd and Berendo streets, in a densely populated, diverse neighborhood west of downtown. Neighbors rushed to save him in the Thursday night darkness. But his body had been charred, and he died.
On Sunday evening, more than 200 people crowded the sidewalk and spilled over into 3rd Street for a memorial to McGraham. Many of them wept as dozens of votive candles glowed on the concrete. McGraham's sister Susanne McGraham-Paisley brought pictures of her brother.
It is a nasty world we live in. This is barbaric.
