Anger over RV dwellers fueled random killing, L.A. prosecutors charge

From his second-floor apartment that overlooked a stretch of road in Sylmar lined with broken-down RV’s, Vincent Wolf fumed.

“They s— and piss on the street,” Wolf, 23, wrote on Instagram in August, according to a search warrant affidavit. “They do drugs in the middle of the night. They f—ing screamed for no reason. And most importantly violent.”

Wolf, a construction worker who lived with his mother and aunt in a run-down apartment complex off Foothill Boulevard, vented in Instagram comments about the city’s handling of the homelessness crisis.

“It’s all corrupt politicians left nor right,” he was quoted as writing in the affidavit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in August. “Elderly people in the young don’t deserve none of this.”

Many Angelenos believe the city’s leaders have squandered billions in funds meant to alleviate the homelessness crisis and allowed unhoused people to take over public space.

But authorities say Wolf took things to an extreme the morning of Aug. 5 when he left his apartment and double-parked next to an RV outside his building. According to the search warrant affidavit, Wolf walked up to Travis Harker, 29, and shot him once in the chest.

Wolf has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Ralf Jacobsen, declined to comment through a department spokeswoman.

The apartment complex on Foothill Boulevard where Vincent Wolf lived when he allegedly shot a homeless man living nearby in an RV. The street was cleared of campers when photographed on March 5, 2026.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

In L.A. County, where an estimated 72,000 people are homeless, RV encampments have become sources of simmering anger and frustration. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimates about 6,290 RVs are being used as makeshift dwellings across the county.

Residents and business owners say the often-dilapidated structures are unsanitary, prone to catching fire and hubs of drug sales and property crime. But for people like Harker, they are home.

Harker grew up in foster care, said Connie Sanchez, a foster mother who raised him during his high school years. When he moved into her Baldwin Park home, “he was just happy to be here, loved,” Sanchez said in an interview.

“The second day he moved in, he called me ‘Mom,’” she said. “He called my sons his brothers.”

Harker said little about his birth family, Sanchez said. From speaking to his sister after he died, she learned Harker had four siblings, several of whom also grew up in foster care.

Quiet and withdrawn at first, Harker opened up as he got to know Sanchez’s sons through playing basketball, she said. He kept in touch with her sons after he moved out at 18, saying he was going to look for his biological parents, Sanchez said.

By the time of his death, Harker had been living on the street for years, said Los Angeles Police Det. Benyamin Sadeh, who investigated the homicide. He frequented the encampment on Foothill Boulevard, which the city periodically cleared by towing RVs and broken-down cars, Sadeh said.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez supports an “RV to Home” program.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who represents Sylmar, has touted an “RV to Home” program started in her district that has since gone citywide. In a Facebook post this month, Rodriguez said the city had removed 150 RVs and found housing for 314 people. Rodriguez’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Sadeh interviewed residents of the Sylmar encampment who said Harker was addicted to heroin and known to break into parked cars. He served time in the L.A. County jail for grand theft, identity theft and drug possession, court records show.

In August, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Commercial Crimes Division arrested Harker, who allegedly possessed cocaine, heroin and financial documents belonging to two women. He was released from jail after promising to show up for his arraignment. Five days later, he was dead.

Through surveillance video, Sadeh identified the car driven by Harker’s killer: a black Toyota Corolla registered to Wolf, the detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit.

Sadeh got a warrant for Wolf’s Instagram records, which revealed comments he’d written:

“Like there isn’t a whole a— homeless man s—ing on the ground as you pass by”

“Where can I get one to kick the homeless out of my neighborhood?”

“LA needs to change our kids can’t even walk to and from school”

When a SWAT team arrested Wolf in late August, officers searched his bedroom and found two handguns, three rifles and ammunition magazines tucked in a “police style duty belt,” according to a police inventory of seized evidence.

One of the handguns expelled the casing found at the scene of the homicide, Wolf’s lawyer stipulated at a preliminary hearing.

Questioned by detectives after his arrest, Wolf said he’d seen Harker over the last three or four years rooting through the trash in his apartment complex, Sadeh said.

At first, Wolf denied killing Harker, the detective said. Told there was video showing him do it, Wolf’s story changed, Sadeh said.

Earlier that morning, Wolf said, he was walking his dog when Harker threatened to stab him and his pet. He returned home and got in his car to run some errands. As he drove past an RV, Wolf said, Harker yelled, “I’m coming to get you,” holding what looked like a knife in his hand.

According to Sadeh, Wolf said he got out of his car and shot Harker in self-defense.

Sadeh said surveillance video from a nearby business told a different story. Harker wasn’t holding a weapon but was tinkering with something on a table outside the RV when Wolf came around the side and shot him, the detective said.

There was “zero confrontation,” Sadeh said. “No words were exchanged. The victim didn’t even see it coming.”

After killing Harker, Wolf went to a bank, visited a cannabis dispensary and stopped by McDonald’s before returning home, Sadeh said.

A sign restricts the parking of large vehicles on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Sadeh said the shooting wasn’t the first time he’s investigated a case in which someone killed out of anger toward homeless people.

The detective recalled a 2023 killing in North Hollywood that started when a pedestrian carrying grocery bags got into an argument with a motorist whose truck blocked the sidewalk.

After yelling at the man on foot, Jarrod Levine relented and moved his truck, Sadeh said. The pedestrian, Mario Palacios, walked past, and Levine started toward his place of work.

Then he made a U-turn, pulled up near Palacios and called him over to his truck, Sadeh said. He fired a single blast from a shotgun into Palacios’ chest, then “goes to work like nothing happened,” Sadeh said.

The detective believes Levine saw the bags Palacios was carrying and mistook him for a homeless person.

After his arrest, Levine — who, like Wolf, had no prior criminal record — said he was fed up with “crazy people” after someone on the street attacked his mother.

“I don’t feel safe in my own neighborhood,” he told detectives.

Levine has pleaded not guilty. At his most recent court appearance, prosecutors said they were offering a sentence of 25 years to life if he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.