Neighborhood resident Bob Dylan, 29, said that Vassell always had the metal rod with him.
“He never had it out, he just kept it on his waist,” Dylan said.
Bob Dylan brought up something very familiar. I spent lots of time with charities for homeless people. This is a familiar sight: a homeless crazy person often have SOMETHING on him. I'm reminded of a pleasant conversation with a homeless guy until he pulled back his jacket, revealing a long screwdriver tucked in his waist band. I looked up and his eyes were wide open in a threatening manner. I took a step back ready to defense myself, then he went back to normal again, as if he did that to scare off some demon behind me.
If you spend a lot of time on the streets, crazy or not, you HAVE to be armed or you won't last. Almost all of the homeless I know have knives, screwdrivers, hammers on their persons and in their backpacks. I once saw a homeless guy with a silver, shinny machete tucked inside his backpack as he rode his bike around the streets like it's nothing. It's
the display of potential menace that they're after, not the actual menace itself.
If you're an adult and you have nothing to do, wandering the streets like most homeless people, there are
2 things you will get into: substances (alcohol, drugs) or crime. Why? because there is literally nothing else to do, your mind just goes numb as you pass the endless time with no punctuation. A homeless guy once told me it's like in prison: the time goes on and on forever. You gotta occupy yourself with something.
So, based on my experience and what the legendary Bob Dylan said: the 'pipe' wasn't just some harmless toy a childlike bi-polar picked up to play with. It was
MEANT FOR A PURPOSE. That was why he
always had it with him in his waist. The most obvious one is self defense. The less obvious:
general intimidation.
It's a lot more necessary than you think. Let's say you're a homeless guy standing in line at a soup kitchen and someone cuts inline, it's late and you might not get to eat. But the guy is so much bigger than you, what do you do? display a threat, reveal a knife or gun to get him to back off. And of course, once you have a useful intimidation tool, you might start using it to get more resources? why not? mugging, robbing people to get high. Homeless people kill each other over a couple of bucks.
So based on my experience,
he always had that fake gun tuck in his waist for intimidation purposes, and most likely not all honorable ones. And he probably done it many times before but this time he went overboard and got stopped.
I read an online comment from a local witness when it went down: he did this to a lot more people than shown in the video. It was at a local bus stop and people were in fear for their lives. The truth is often of the lowest common denominator.
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone...