The City of Brownsville, Legendary Haven for the Homeless

Jeffrey Cutlip, the Oregon serial killer, loved living as a homeless person in Brownsville.

"The police don't hassle you at all," Cutlip once told me, while explaining his comfort zone here. He frequently slept in the bushes behind an adult day care center on Central Boulevard.  Sometimes at night, he would wander down for entertainment at the Crescent Moon, where he was treated graciously.  He so ingratiated himself into the community as to get his picture on the cover of a blurb for George Ramirez's Latin Jazz Festival as shown in the pic above.

Cutlip, Waiting for his Date, At a Brownsville
Cheezmeh Valentine's Day Event

During Brownsville's few really cold winter days, Cutlip would scour the parking lot of the Valley Baptist Hospital for a plastic wristband of a discharged patient, then seek the warmth of one of the waiting rooms.  As the security guard approached, Cutlip would extend his wrist beyond his long sleeve shirt, showing his wristband,  and the guard would simply move on.

When Cutlip casually revealed that he'd killed a woman in Oregon, subsequently escaping prison before coming here, I called 911.  Noticing I was on the phone, Cutlip slipped away, but I later spotted him at a bus stop.  My second 911 call was treated by the BPD dispatcher with an obvious "ho hum."  On the third call, the dispatcher said a detective "knew" the guy and he was "alright."

Cutlip, though, knowing he'd outed himself, went to BPD and said, yes he'd killed, not one, but three women in Oregon.  He is now back in prison in Oregon.

Under threatening Election Day skies, my son, Diego Lee Rot, and I, met Carl, a visitor from Dallas, who stood stoically, proudly, almost defiantly, just off Paredes Line Road, near Wendy's Hamburgers. Dressed in a blue bedsheet, perfectly tailored at the shoulders, with an upside down, blue-handled serving spoon attached chest-high, the man appeared as if an extra in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. He looked incredibly Biblical.

"Hi. I'm Jim. May I ask your name?" I said, introducing myself.

"I'm Carl," was the softspoken response.

"Well, Carl. I'm intrigued by your outfit. Are you portraying Moses or some Biblical character?" I asked.

"Oh, no."

Well, where are you from, Carl? I asked.

"Dallas."

What made you come to Brownsville?

"I came with some friends."

"How do you like Brownsville? I know it's hot."

"It was hot in Dallas, too. I try to dress for the heat."

"By the way, Carl, what is the purpose or the meaning of the spoon?" I asked.

"It's just for decoration," Carl replied.

When I got back to the car, my son Diego said: "That's the same man that was naked along the Interstate a couple days ago. Why don't you give him a couple dollars? It's hard living on the street."

"Carl, I don't want to insult you, but, here's a little something for your needs," I stated before returning back to my air-conditioned vehicle.

The guy at the left, panhandling at the intersection of the freeway and Ruben Torres Blvd.,  approached our vehicle menacingly when he saw us taking pics with our phone.  He screamed out "Fuck you!" at our driver's side window.

A few days later, a reader sent us his Brownsville PD mug shot.  He'd been arrested on several counts, including fleeing from arrest.  We've since learned he'd been sleeping nights on a mattress on the outskirts of Sunrise Mall near the Texaco station.

Couple and Their Dog Living Under
Awning at Casa del Nylon in 2012

In 2012, shortly after Tony Martinez and the City Commission purchased Casa del Nylon on Adams Street at the extremely exorbitant price of $2,300,000, we met a homeless couple living under the dilapidated building's awning.  Four years later, the man's wife and dog have died.  He has a new dog, but is still living under the building's awning.  He's asked me not to use his name in my articles.    

Since that time, the city has collected zero property tax on the building, but done absolutely nothing with it.  Abraham Galonsky, a Tony Martinez crony, finally sold the building, though, after many years of running a retail business selling "new" clothes and other items that had been in his upstairs storeroom so long as to become "vintage."

Is Brownsville a haven for the homeless, disenchanted and those who would rather panhandle then work?  Probably. We have a mild climate allowing these folks to survive outside without freezing to death.  But, also, we have generous people, who know what it's like to have very little and who eagerly, if naively, give to those they perceive as "needy."