September 14th, Jason Coleman. Jason lived in a homeless encampment in North Oakland. Here, a handful of RVs are parked under an overpass. Old couch cushions, clothes, and empty bottles are scattered over the sidewalk where people gather.
This was Jason's home? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're a community, too.
This is Jason's friend Linda. She lives in the encampment in an RV with her dog. One time he came from pack and saved, and they had made a mistake on his EBT card and gave him $100 more food stamps. He only was supposed to get, like $40 or something.
Food stamps. So he bought a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers and cold. And it just so happens, I think, what was that holiday Labor Day weekend. Because, yeah, all real hungry, but none of the churches or the food people were coming because they were with their families.
You know, he came riding on a little bike with a damn card on the back. A few days later, someone stole that bike from Jason. Jason came out of the man cave and just looked at me like. Like, get my bike, Newton.
I've been homeless my whole life. I just went straight on running at the guy, Ran straight at him, and he got scared, went for his gun, pointed it right at him, and just shot him. Jason just, you know, grabbed the bullet hole, and I was hoping it was a blank, but then he pulled his hand off of his. Off his body, and he was bleeding, so he ran to the cave, and I grabbed him, by the way, I ran inside the RV and grabbed a tampon and made him lay down and put a tampon in the bullet hol and.
And started gpr. I was just telling him to hold on, and he was telling me, you know, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. And he gasped for air one more time.
You can still see Jason's bloody handprints on the wall of the freeway where he lived. And Jason actually didn't live on the streets. He lived inside them, inside the hollow cement pillars that hold up the off ramp. Jason had made a room for himself.
He'd even wired cable and Internet inside. Man cave. Man cave. There's, you know, there's a couch in there.
You know, there's. He had a mini fridge. You know, he's got a water container. He's got, you know, he had a projector.
There's a small shrine in the corner of the underpass where people have placed little things to remember Jason. So I just. I set the GI Joe there. And then there's all the Mardi Gras beads and the hearts that are.
I wrote there that I loved like a brother, you know, and that's how our relationship was. Very brother or sister, you know? But I. I really did have a really big crush on J.