Sheriff Briese: ‘The community is scared’

It is a precarious time to be a person experiencing homelessness in Mariposa County. Even more so than usual.

The arrest of a transient drifter for attempted murder after a four day manhunt, and the pending closure of the county’s only homeless shelter, has set the community on edge.

The anxiety is reaching a fever pitch just in time for peak fire season.

“The encampments, the trash, the illegal campfires, are all these ripe ingredients that threaten our town and our community,” Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese told the Board of Supervisors last week.

Briese promised county leaders a more proactive law enforcement approach, with deputies citing people for illegal dumping, littering, trespassing, public nuisance violations, unleashed animals and other offenses.

“What’s happening right now is not working,” he said. “The community is scared.”

“Drugs, violence, stress, mental illness, all that compounded together is a recipe for disaster,” Briese said.

At least 24 people have been living along the Mariposa Creek Parkway, according to the most recent assessment from the Mariposa County Health & Human Service Agency (HHSA). But those numbers appear to have changed substantially after recent saturation patrols in the area.

Meanwhile, the Connections Emergency Shelter, operated by Alliance for Community Transformations, is set to close on June 30.

There are currently 26 people living at the shelter, HHSA said.

County officials are scrambling to find another operator for the shelter and fear its closing will undo considerable progress they have made since June 2024, when a large homeless encampment adjacent to HHSA offices was removed.

Calls to Creekside Terrace Apartments

The violent assault May 23 by a homeless man with a sword has brought renewed attention to the Creekside Terrace Apartments.

The suspect, Jonathan Bays, who is described as transient, was visiting one of the apartments at Creekside Terrace when he allegedly struck Andrew Cooper, 32, with a long sword in what the sheriff has described as a methamphetamine fueled argument.

Others, who know both men, said Cooper was a mistaken target and Bays was upset about a soured drug deal.

Bays was caught May 27 when he returned to a nearby homeless encampment on a hillside above Mariposa Creek.

There have been more than 100 police calls to the Creekside Apartments since January. Those calls were primarily for disturbing the peace, fighting and being under the influence.

Several people interviewed at the Creekside Terrace Apartments point out that they, too, are victims, collateral damage to a problem caused by a few individuals who use methamphetamine and other drugs and invite the homeless into their apartments.

They wondered why these tenants haven’t been evicted already.

These residents declined to give their names out of fear of retaliation.

A ‘catastrophic event’

Then, there is the nightmare scenario.

The sheriff and county officials fear a wildfire starting at one of the homeless encampments.

The area along Mariposa Creek is thick with brush that climbs the steep hillside.

There are visible fire pits at some of the encampments.

Across from the encampments, on the east side of Mariposa Creek, are three apartment complexes and the Idle Wheels mobile home park.

And the town of Mariposa, of course, is less than a quarter mile away.

The sheriff said when encountering the unhoused, his deputies will try to route them to resources “if there are resources available.”

But Briese was quite clear.

If they are committing crimes, his deputies are prepared to enforce the law, he said, “to prevent a catastrophic event from occurring in Mariposa County.”

“I know I may take some flack for that,” he added.

Judging by the response on social media, he won’t take much.

The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office posted a video on Facebook that showed encampments and trash along Mariposa Creek and transients sitting at the picnic tables in the park behind the Mariposa Museum and History Center.

The video garnered more than 236 comments, the overwhelming majority supportive of the sheriff’s office.

“Our goal is not to criminalize poverty, but to hold individuals accountable for behavior that damages our community and threatens public health and safety,” the sheriff’s Facebook post said.

Mariposa County Supervisor Jenni Kiser, who’s district includes the Creekside Apartments, argued that society has confused compassion with abandonment.

“Folks who struggle with addiction need to be held accountable,” she said flatly.

“The dignity of people living in squalor is far more stripped than anywhere else,” she said, comparing it to being incarcerated.

Kiser, who has been open about her own past addiction issues, said she doesn’t delude herself that “people with addiction aren’t dangerous.”

“People at Creekside Apartments themselves are begging us for help,” she said.

“There’s a gentlemen who walks by every day with a machete on his back.”

“It’s a horrible situation on so many levels,” Kiser said.