Homeless man attacked in Glenwood

Fox8 reports that a homeless man was attacked and robbed early this morning while looking for a place to sleep in the Glenwood neighborhood in Greensboro. The man told police that two men approached him, attacked him with a chain and stole his backpack.

I checked the incident report and the man’s name, age and race match that of a man I know, but haven’t seen in a long while, who has lived in Glenwood previously and has been homeless off and on — with the exception that the last name of the man I know begins with a different letter than that on the incident report and that reported by Fox8. Because everything else is the same, I’m assuming it’s the same guy, and they just spelled his name wrong on the incident report. I hope that he’s OK. The incident report lists “Minor Injuries, Apparent.” But he wasn’t interviewed for the news story, so there’s no way to know how this has affected him.

Fox8 interviewed Mike Aiken, director of Greensboro Urban Ministry, for the story, and that segment of the news story focuses on homeless people being attacked as part of gang initiations, although GPD has not identified this attack as being gang-related. Wonder why that came up? I’ll try to find out.

Just another reminder that it’s dangerous to be homeless.

P.S. Just talked to another friend, formerly homeless, who now lives in Glenwood and was also recently violently attacked and robbed in this same area. Better watch out if you’re walking at night in Glenwood.