Crime activists: Homeless beatings becoming sport

~ Trend highlighted by beatings of three homeless Florida men.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A string of beatings of three homeless men in Fort Lauderdale in a single night last week has cast a spotlight on a brand of crime activists say has practically become sport among young people around the country.

Police say the attacks were carried out by a group of teenagers who piled into a car with baseball bats, a golf club and a paintball gun and went looking for homeless people to beat up.

"I wish I could say this was shocking and appalling, but it's not. We see it all the time," said Laura Hansen, executive director of the Broward Coalition for the Homeless. She said she sees the bruises, black eyes and broken teeth suffered by homeless victims on a daily basis.

From Florida to Alaska, dozens of homeless people are attacked each year, most often by white men under 20, according to the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. Baseball bats are a favored weapon, as well as rocks, bricks, fists and feet, pellet guns and knives.

Three teenagers are charged with murder in the Jan. 12 beating death of 45-year-old Norris Gaynor, whose head and chest were bashed with a baseball bat while he slept on a park bench. He was also shot several times with yellow paintball slugs.

The same night, another man was assaulted with a golf club outside a nearby church. A third was bludgeoned with a bat outside a college building -- an attack that was captured on surveillance video, which helped lead to the arrests. Both men were seriously injured.

"This will shine a very bright light on an issue that has been camouflaged and buried for a long time," said Marti Forman, chief executive of the Cooperative Feeding Program in Broward County. "People put blinders on until it's right under their nose."

The National Coalition for the Homeless has documented 386 attacks on the homeless over the past six years, including 156 deaths. Of the total number of attacks, 211 have been recorded since 2002.

The real numbers are probably much higher, because homeless people often cannot or will not go to the police, and the analysis is not an exhaustive look at every jurisdiction in the country, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the homeless coalition.

"Homeless people just take it on the chin and move to a more secluded area," Stoops said. "We know that this is underreported."