A 77-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene earlier this week after being brutally beaten to death outside a 7-Eleven in San Francisco, police said.
Richard Owens was one of three people allegedly targeted at a 7-Eleven early Tuesday morning in what police called a random attack, according to local Fox affiliate KTVU.
Police said the suspect, who has since been identified as 32-year-old Charles Short, started attacking people for no apparent reason at around 6:30 a.m., when he first dragged a 26-year-old man waiting at a nearby bus stop into the convenience store and began to beat him.
The suspect then allegedly turned on the 70-year-old convenience store owner and attacked him while preventing both victims from calling 911.
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Short then reportedly moved outside and approached Owens in a gruesome encounter that was recorded on surveillance footage.
Owens was later pronounced dead at the scene and the two other victims were taken to the hospital.
“They had a dead body sitting on the side of the street with a tarp over it,” local resident Giesha Calloway told KTVU. “It was really bad. There was a lot of blood. It didn’t look right… really scary to know what happened.”
“It’s not safe,” said Calloway, who noted she no longer walks the neighborhood. “They need some kind of security. They need security around here. It’s getting out of hand. This is ridiculous.”
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Sheriff’s deputies pass by a sanctioned and fenced-in homeless encampment across from City Hall in San Francisco on May 19, 2020.
(Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images)
A business owner who runs a nearby auto repair shop and spoke to KTVU on condition of anonymity said the attack against Owens was shocking.
“It was terrible,” the business owner said. “Somebody just got beaten to death. That was brutal and really scary.”
He added that he often experiences mentally ill people coming into his business, and that he has taken to arming himself with a Taser.
People sleep near discarded clothing and used needles on a street in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, on July 25, 2019.
(AP Photo/Janie Har)
“One crazy guy came in here and beat us up,” he recounted. “Me and my buddy, we were sent to the hospital for a few days because of a crazy random attack.”
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“It is heartbreaking to see this type of senseless violence on the seniors in our community,” Supervisor Shamann Walton said in a statement Wednesday. “I am committed to working with our community, city departments and law enforcement to prevent violent incidents like this from happening to our community and to our seniors.”
