From his second-floor apartment overlooking a narrow road in Sylmar lined with broken-down RVs, Vincent Wolf was angry.
“They go — and they pee on the street,” Wolf, 23, wrote on Instagram in August, according to the search warrant affidavit. They take drugs in the middle of the night. They cry for no reason. And most importantly they are violent.
Wolf, a construction worker who lives with his mother and aunt in a dilapidated apartment along Foothill Boulevard, took to Instagram to comment on the city’s handling of the homeless crisis.
“All corrupt politicians left or right,” he was quoted as writing in the affidavit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in August. “People who are older than young people don’t deserve this at all.”
Many Angelenos believe that the city’s leaders have wasted billions in funds intended to alleviate the homeless problem and are allowing the homeless to take over public space.
But authorities say Wolf took things to the extreme on the morning of August 5 when he left his house and double parked next to an RV outside his building. According to the search warrant affidavit, Wolff walked up to Travis Harker, 29, and shot him once in the chest.
Wolf pleaded not guilty to murder. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Ralf Jacobsen, declined to comment through a department spokeswoman.
The apartment on Foothill Boulevard where Vincent Wolf lived when he shot a homeless man living next to an RV. The road was cleared of campers when the photos were taken on March 5, 2026.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
In LA County, where an estimated 72,000 people are homeless, RV camps have become sources of anger and frustration. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimates about 6,290 RVs are being used as temporary shelters throughout the county.
Residents and business owners say the decaying buildings are unsanitary, prone to fires and hotbeds of drug trafficking and property crime. But for people like Harker, they’re home.
Harker grew up in foster care, said Connie Sanchez, her foster mother when she was in high school. When he moved into his home in Baldwin Park, he was “happy to be here, loved,” Sanchez said in an interview.
“The second day he came, he called me ‘Mom,'” she said. “He called my sons his brothers.”
Harker said little about his birth family, Sanchez said. From talking to her sister after her death, she learned that Harker had four siblings, many of whom also grew up in foster care.
Quiet and withdrawn at first, Harker opened up about getting to know Sanchez’s sons through basketball, he said. He kept in touch with his sons after he got out at age 18, saying he was going to check on his biological parents, Sanchez said.
At the time of his death, Harker had been living on the streets for years, said Los Angeles police Det. Benyamin Sadeh, who investigated the murder. He used to camp on Foothill Boulevard, where the city would occasionally remove it by towing RVs and broken-down cars, Sadeh said.
Los Angeles City Council Member Monica Rodriguez supports the “RV to Home” program.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who represents Sylmar, has promoted the “RV to Home” program that started in her district and has gone citywide. In a Facebook post this month, Rodriguez said the city removed 150 RVs and found housing for 314 people. A spokesman for Rodriguez did not respond to a request for comment.
Sadeh interviewed Sylmar camp residents who said Harker was high on heroin and was known to break into parked cars. He served time in the LA 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 was allegedly in possession of cocaine, heroin and the financial records of two women. He was released from prison after promising to appear at his sentencing. 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 the search warrant affidavit.
Sadeh obtained a warrant for Wolf’s Instagram records, which revealed comments he had written:
“Like no one—a homeless person—sits down as you pass by”
“Where can I get someone to evict the homeless in my area?”
“LA needs to change our kids can’t even walk to and from school”
When a SWAT team arrested Wolf in late August, police searched his bedroom and found two handguns, three handguns and ammunition magazines tucked into a “police utility belt,” according to a police list of seized evidence.
One of the guns fired a charge found at the scene, Wolf’s attorney said in a preliminary hearing.
When questioned by detectives after his arrest, Wolf said he saw Harker three or four years ago taking out trash from his apartment, Sadeh said.
At first, Wolff denied killing Harker, the investigator said. When told there was a video of him doing it, Wolf’s story changed, Sadeh said.
That morning, Wolf said, she was walking her dog when Harker threatened to stab her and her pet. He returned home and got into his car to run errands. As he passed the RV, Wolf said, Harker yelled, “I’m coming to get you,” with what appeared to be 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 tells a different story. Harker was not carrying a weapon but was tapping something on a table outside the RV when Wolf walked around and shot him, the detective said.
“There was no conflict,” said Sadeh. “Names were not changed, the victim didn’t even know it was coming.”
After killing Harker, Wolff went to the bank, visited a marijuana dispensary and stopped by a McDonald’s before returning home, Sadeh said.
A sign restricts large vehicle parking on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Sadeh said that this is not the first shooting incident he is investigating a case where a person has died due to the anger of homeless people.
The detective recalled an incident in 2023 in North Hollywood that began when a pedestrian carrying grocery bags got into an argument with a driver who was blocked by a truck.
After yelling at the pedestrian, Jarrod Levine pulled over and moved his truck, Sadeh said. A pedestrian, Mario Palacios, passed by, and Levine began walking to work.
He then made a U-turn, pulled up next to Palacios and called him to his truck, Sadeh said. He fired one shot into Palacios’ chest, then “went to work as if nothing had happened,” Sadeh said.
The detective believes Levine saw the bags Palacios was carrying and thinks he is a homeless person.
After his arrest, Levine — who, like Wolf, had no 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 neighborhood,” he told detectives.
Levine has pleaded not guilty. When he appeared in court recently, prosecutors said they were offering a sentence of 25 years to life in prison if he pleaded guilty to murder.
