Homeless Man Back on Streets After Sick Attack with Bucket of 'Hot' Diarrhea
California residents may need to do more than watch where they step when trying to avoid being covered in human waste.
Many Californians already have to walk on sidewalks littered with feces.
For one woman, things were worse — much worse.
Heidi Van Tassel didn’t walk in a pile of human waste. Instead, a bucket of feces was poured on her during a sickening attack in Los Angeles earlier this year.
After returning to her car following a night out near Hollywood, Van Tassel says she was ripped from her vehicle and roughly dragged to the middle of the street.
There, her homeless assailant poured a bucket of diarrhea over her.
“It was diarrhea. Hot liquid. I was soaked, and it was coming off my eyelashes and into my eyes,” Van Tassel told KNBC. “Paramedics who came to treat me said there was so much of it on me, that it looked like the man was saving it up for a month.”
“It was all inside my car because it was so much. He just kept pouring it and splattering it all over me.”
Although the attack didn’t appear to leave her seriously injured, the true depth of the brutal assault’s destruction is still unfolding.
Van Tassel was taken to the hospital and tested for infectious diseases, which human waste can carry plenty of. She will have to return to the hospital every three months to be tested again.
Along with the quarterly hospital visits, the woman also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the horror of the senseless crime.
“It’s so traumatic. The PTSD that I’m dealing with is beyond anything that I’ve ever felt,” Van Tassel told KNBC. “There needs to be some kind of help for the victims of these crimes.”
Citing court records, KNBC reported that her attacker was identified as Jere Blessings, a homeless man with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Despite his sickening behavior, the transient is now back on the street.
“Jere Blessings got help, but only for two months. He was sent by a judge to a residential facility for people with mental health issues, and released in August,” KNBC reported.
“The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office said Blessings is now back in the community.”
While this isn’t the first attack by a homeless person, it’s certainly one of the most disturbing.
The problem of homeless residents seems to plague cities with liberal governments that are apparently incapable of landing on a solution to the issue.
Homelessness usually isn’t just a matter of someone not having a home.
Rather, it can involve a worrying mix of economical, psychological and criminal issues, which makes finding an effective solution difficult.
Some localities have introduced programs to physically bus homeless people away. In places like New York City, the problem goes virtually unaddressed.
While cities and counties struggle with the homeless problem, residents often wind up as victims.
Attacks by the homeless, stemming either from mental issues or from attempts to steal money and valuables, can strike anyone.
A clear-cut solution to the crisis has yet to be found.
What’s glaringly obvious is that whatever California is doing simply isn’t working.
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