'Full-scale emergency': musician burned in his tent highlights LA's homeless crisis
Sam Levin in Los Angeles
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Fri 30 Aug 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 30 Aug 2019 01.12 EDT
Musician Darrell Fields, 62, was well-known in downtown LA. Photograph: Courtesy of LA Can
Darrell Fields, 62, who was known as Mr Guitar, was often seen playing music on the street and at neighborhood events
Los Angeles homeless advocates and Skid Row residents are mourning the death of a beloved guitarist who was killed when his tent was set ablaze in what authorities say was an “intentional” act.
The gruesome death of Darrell Fields, a 62-year-old musician who was well-known in downtown LA and worked extensively with a local advocacy group, was a particularly brutal representation of a severe and worsening homeless crisis in the region. The deadly fire Monday night came the same week that a scathing government audit found that LA’s top homeless outreach agency had dramatically failed in its goals to place people into housing.
“We are in a full-scale emergency,” said Kayo Anderson, a Skid Row advocate who was friends with Fields for years and played with him in a band. “We no longer have the luxury of walking at a snail’s pace to get this done. If Darrell was a housed person, he would still be with us. That’s an indictment of us all.”
Anderson, 42, has stored Fields’ guitars and keyboards inside his office at the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA Can). “I can’t even express to you how genius he was,” Anderson said about Fields. “He was just brilliant and uniquely gifted … He was also a big-hearted human who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/29/los-angeles-homeless-tent-murder-darrell-fields