Several regulars stand at the Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs table waiting for their first warm cup of coffee. A line had yet to form. Lunch won’t be arriving for another thirty minutes.
Saturday March 21, 2026 was the perfect sunny day. The meal promised to be another glorious celebration of community. Other than a dispute over a dog off the leash the meals have been peaceful for weeks. A welcoming gathering where friends chat and enjoy lunch together. The free telephone lady might join us. This will please those who lost theirs to the police or a thief. Community members are already pulling in to drop off clothing and food donations. Sometimes we are honored with live music but not today.
Our volunteer Jasmine was preparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for our guest Robert to hold him over until the seven course meal arrived. I see another regular, Justin, step up behind Robert seeming to ignore the selection of other open spaces at the lunch counter.
A thunderbolt of screaming pierced the tranquility of waiting diners. The green and orange “This is a FNB Safe Space - Please respect it” sign catapulted towards the Clock Tower fountain. I quickly stepped aside from the tumbling ball of humanity to avoid being knocked to the sidewalk. It looked like a fist fight had exploded.
One of the two fighters, Robert, freed himself from the fracas and fled to the side of the Food Not Bombs van. The smashing and yelling pulled our volunteer Drew from his task of packaging bowls of dog food at the back of the van. The first bowl was intended for Justin’s dog.
Always silent guest Robert, dubbed by the streets as the “Unabomber” because of his cold blank stare and dark hoodies leaned against the van. As I approached I could see that he was calmly holding two serrated stake knives at his sides pointing down towards the Knight Street asphalt. Drew gets to Robert first.
“Let us take your knives,” Drew calmly asks, “You can place them on the roof of the van. We’ll give them back to you later.” Robert Worel speaks to Drew for the first time he could remember, softly asking Drew to get his coat and shoe. Drew heads to his discarded clothing telling him he will gather them for him. I ask again for his knives. “Get my shoe” he softly repeats and I assure him that Drew is fetching it.
Screams of “He’s dying he’s dying!” divert my attention from the knife holding Robert. Several people are packing blood soaked clothing to Justin’s torso. His red plaid shirt made even redder as the panicked crowd tries to save him. I call 911, “We need an ambulance at the Town Clock!” The dispatcher asks where I am. “ The Clock Tower the Clock Tower.” “Where at the Clock Tower?” She asks. “At the Town Clock” I repeat.
Sirens are blaring. Squad cars are arriving.
Our friend LB staggers from behind the van into the street. Blood is pouring out of his neck staining his bright white shirt. He stumbles past Justin and collapses by our free clothing tables.
A posse of six or eight people race down Knight Street after Robert yelling. Lookout Santa Cruz reporter Cecilia Schutz writes, “John Asher, another volunteer with Food Not Bombs, said he saw a man sitting next to him get stabbed by the suspect. He said he also saw the suspect stabbing a second person with two knives.”
“Asher said he tried to stop the suspect from harming anyone else.”
“‘I grabbed a piece of bamboo that I had sitting next to me and I ran up and started chasing him down the street,’” he said. “‘We got to the street sign and he turned around and tried to stab me.’”
“Asher was put in handcuffs by police for chasing the man with his bamboo stick, but was released almost immediately.”
Two police cruisers skid to a stop in the wrong lane of Water Street. More police vehicles scatter around the plaza.
A fire truck arrives and paramedics rush to Justin and Pretty Boy.
Schutz writes “Jasmine Moffett, a volunteer for Food Not Bombs, said the altercation began when the stabbing suspect, whom she was serving at the time, cut the food line, aggravating the man behind him.”
“Moffett said the man behind the suspect punched him in the face. She said she tried to offer assistance to the man who had just been punched.”
“‘I got him a paper towel and I asked him, ‘Hey, can I get you anything?’ He said, ‘No, can you get me a gun with ammunition?’” Moffett said. ‘I thought he was joking because he just got socked in the face.’”
Jasmine told the reporter that the people who organize the Food Not Bombs meals do a great job at creating a welcoming and safe environment but on occasion there can be arguments and fights.
Medics remove LB’s blood soaked shirt revealing six or seven wounds in his back. I worry his lung may have been punctured. Maybe a kidney. The fire department medics apply gauze and bandages to the injuries. Other medics are trying to revive Justin.
Ambulances finally arrive and rush the stabbing victims to the hospital. The police start unrolling yellow caution tape wrapping one end around the “Collateral Damage” monument, winding around our Knight Street facing canopy legs and over to the Food Not Bombs equipment trailer. The officer in charge suggests we reverse our serving area and share the meals on the Water Street side. “Tell your drivers they can pass the police line at River Street.” The police were so cooperative I emailed Chief Bernie Escalante asking him to thank his staff. The volunteers move the coffee urns, bread and paper products to the tables away from Water Street.
I call our driver Eagle at the kitchen to warn them that Water Street is closed but the police will let him through. If the traffic is backed up he could deliver the food to the North Pacific Ave side of the plaza. Eagle pulls up about fifteen minutes later with seven five gallon hotel trays of lunch and a wagon. Several guests help him bring the hot meal to the serving table and a line of about 30 gets ready to be served.
Police are placing numbered plastic yellow crime scene markers at each bloody spot. Photos are taken. Our volunteer Anthony’s car and our van are included in the taped area and were not free to leave until after six.
Before heading down to the Clock Tower that morning I was writing the essay “Embrace the Compassion of Community” about how our Food Not Bombs meals could become a sanctuary in these times of war and economic crisis.
I returned to the Town Clock Sunday morning with an amplifier and mic. “I know we are all traumatized. We pray that Justin recovers quickly. As the economy continues to crater we are going to be welcoming the hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who have just found themselves homeless.”
I continued, “It will be frightening for those who have never been homeless so they could be looking to us for support. We are also likely to see more families with children coming for food so we don’t want them to feel any more uncomfortable than they will already be. Let’s take care of one another. Step away if you feel slighted and don’t get into a fight. Keep your dog on a leash. Things are only gong to get more dire.”
I reminded the assembled volunteers and guests that in my 46 years with Food Not Bombs I don’t recall seeing or even hearing of any one being stabbed during any of the millions of times we have shared food.
A few days later I start getting calls from a couple of social workers at the Stanford Medical Center. They need to find Justin’s family. I ask my friends on the street if anyone knows how to contact his family. They think he was from Florida. The social workers thought that might be a lead. His facebook page says he is from Okeechobee. They can’t tell me Justin’s condition but it didn’t sound good.
According to a story in Lookout Santa Cruz his 42 year old mother, Terri Jekot Moore, said Justin had been on life support at Stanford University Medical Center for about two weeks until he was taken off during Easter weekend.
“‘He was a very generous, caring, loving, giving person,’” said Jekot, who recently returned to her Florida home. She said Moore left his home in Okeechobee for California around 2006, and had a goal to help the unhoused community.”
Those of us who knew Justin could attest to his concern for the homeless people with whom he and his dog shared the streets of Santa Cruz.
The murder of Justin and the stabbing of Pretty Boy is but one of many indications that America is growing desperate.
On April 7, 2026 a young man, Chamel Abdulkarim filmed himself setting fire to a 1.2-million-square-foot Kimberly- Clark distribution center in Ontario California saying, “There goes your inventory. All you had to do was pay us enough to fucking live.” He is likely to be the next class war folk hero like Luigi Mangione who was accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Protests are against AI data farms and the cruel elimination of jobs, increased electric and water bills and city tax breaks to the mega corporations at the expense of local services are growing heated.
A city councilor’s house was shot up after an angry city council meeting where the public demanded the data center not be built in their community yet the council approved the massive water and power guzzling project anyway. Indianapolis City-County Councilor Ron Gibson’s home was struck 13 times by gunfire early on April 6, 2026, following his support for a new data center project, with a note reading “no data centers” left at the scene.
Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama, a 20-year-old male, was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the North Beach home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Police report that around 3:40 a.m.on April 13th the suspect threw a bottle containing a flaming rag at the metal gate of 855 Chestnut Street in San Francisco.
It is possible that the rash of arson attacks by workers could be hijacked by the CIA to initiate a “Strategy of Tension” campaign where their assets add to the chaos with even more dramatic actions. A justification for targeting state enemies like the much hyped threat of Antifa. Expect a more robust police clampdown to follow.
It’s not as though this rage isn’t justified. Americans are buying over priced low quality food with credit cards at 20% interest. Credit card defaults are already at record levels. Americans are forgoing medical care due to the expense while we pay for universal access to healthcare in Israel. Wages so low families have little money after rent or can’t even afford rent and are forced to move into their vehicles, doorways or homeless shelters.
As we struggle to pay our bills the Epstein class billionaires are raking in the big bucks on the wars and genocides they themselves initiate. We are forced to finance their savagery no questions asked while case managers are required to grill people seeking food stamps for three hours to make sure the taxpayers aren’t getting ripped off by a poor person getting $10 a month too much.
When it comes to military spending no amount of theft from the American taxpayer is too much. Launch an illegal war and spend billions a day losing it. Dare Iran to keep their word that if attacked they will respond and sure enough Iran does and as promised they obliterate billions of dollars worth of military bases, equipment and oil and gas infrastructure.
Billions of dollars worth of planes, ships and military bases have already been destroyed in the first 40 days of what is shaping up to be a very long and deadly war. Hundreds of American soldiers have already been killed and tens of thousands more are likely to return home in flag draped coffins before this is all over.
Tens of thousands of innocent Iranians and Palestinians have already been murdered with threats of ending their civilization. Centuries old World Heritage Sites, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks destroyed in defense of US dollar hegemony and Zionist supremacy.
Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Ryan Coonerty’s predictive policing software may have made its mark on the first day of the war on Iran helping target 168 people, mostly young girls who were killed in the Tomahawk missile strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab.
The United States has lost 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones at a cost of approximately $30 million to $34 million each during these terror operations against Iran, including 8 shot down in the first week of April alone according to CBS News. A savage unnecessary war against a beautiful culture. A deadly fiasco that the US and Israel started, blinded by their racism. A war they are losing.
There is every reason to believe the destruction of oil and gas infrastructure and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will be enough to send an already fragile economy into a depression. Programs to help the poor and homeless are already being eliminated due to federal cuts in funding.
At the same time that social services are being eliminated Trump has proposed a record $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year (FY) 2027, marking a 44% increase from the previous year. This proposal includes a $1.15 trillion base request for the Pentagon, plus an additional $350 billion aimed at addressing global threats through military modernization. Another gift to the AI Epstein billionaires.
Economist Mark Skidmore and his team of graduate students at Michigan State University found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015. The Pentagon has yet to pass an audit.
These are trillions of dollars that could have gone to quality education, affordable housing and healthcare. Help for Americans struggling to pay their bills desperate to stay fed and housed. The US State Department told an audience at Tufts University in April 2009 that the people that are “sharing vegan meals in the parks” are more dangerous than al-Qaeda because their people were loved by their community and were influencing Americans to demand that military spending be diverted to fund “healthcare, education and other social services” threatening the countries ability to continue the war against the al-Qaeda that the US was covertly arming.
We really do need the message of food, not bombs, to become a rallying cry for the transformation of the United States.
We need a new American Revolution. A strategy that removes us from the clutches of the satanic child killing techno-feudalists. A plan to create a society where it is possible to thrive. To maintain our dignity and sovereignty. Where no one worries for good food, a safe comforting home and health focused healthcare.
A strategy that forces an end to this system. Forces an end to the nuclear threat. Forces an end to the ravaging of our environment. An end to the immoral genocidal Zionist state of Israel. An end to 250 years of US rule by thuggery.
This must be an American Revolution by the working class not the wealthy merchant class of colonial America. A revolution of the heart, of the human spirit not of the gun. The revolution of Food and Not Bombs. Not the astroturf revolution of the Democratic Party’s Indivisible vote blue no matter who type revolution. A real revolution.
A revolution to create a nation where people aren’t so desperate to get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that they lose their life.
Food Not Bombs - PO Box 422, Santa Cruz CA 95061 USA - www.foodnotbombs.net
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Bless you Heather. Yes its going to be hard on people. Thanks for your prayers for our world. Keith
Excellent blog post, Mr. McHenry, and I am so sorry about the man who lost his life. And thank you for calling out the Democratic Party, I wish more people would. The empire is going down, the only good thing that’s happening. And it can’t go down fast enough. The only trouble is all the many many ordinary people getting hurt in the process. I wish I could help more. But I’m a sick old 72 year old lady who uses a cane and sometimes a wheelchair. But I can pray and I do, every day. I hope that’s not being presumptuous.