An alleged squatter shot and killed a tenant in a Phoenix property after taking over a vacant home this month, court records show.
Another tenant was shot but survived the altercation involving 49-year-old squatter Refugio Jimenez. The victims include 29-year-old Rashaad Johnson, who died, as well as a woman who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, Phoenix’s 12 News reported.
Jimenz was reportedly living across the street in a vacant property. The tenants involved sometimes let the squatters shower occasionally, but then property manager Nico Bird said Jimenez was told to go away.
“But then after that, they were told they weren’t allowed at the property,” Bird told the local news station.
He said the squatters still living there started stealing food and damaging the property.
“We put locks on—the squatters were mad that happened, and one of the tenants tried to force them out of the house, and gunshots were fired,” Bird said.
When Johnson told Jimenez he couldn’t be on their property, Jimenez then left and returned with his gun, court documents said. At that point, he shot Johnson several times.
Three days later, Jimenez was arrested at a different Phoenix property wearing body armor. Police also found methamphetamine in his belongings.
Jimenez claimed that he shot Johnson in self-defense after Johnson fired a gun at him, but police did not identify any other shell casings at the scene of the crime.
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Since the squatters moved in, tenants have been having to face a lower quality of life and potentially violent situations, according to Bird.
“They feel like their housing situation was a lot better six months ago, and a lot of them didn’t understand why until a lot of the homeless population came over here and the squatters came,” Bird said.
“When he felt like something didn’t go his way, he did what he wanted to do. So now, yeah, I have a tenant that’s dead, and I have a girlfriend that’s crying over here wishing he was alive.”
Bird said when police did respond to reports of the squatters previously, they dismissed the problem as homelessness and left without doing anything.
“They would come here and say, ‘It’s just a homeless guy.’ Sometimes that homeless guy is the guy that’s going to do the crime,” Bird said.
Jimenez faces seven felonies, including a first-degree murder charge.
Nationwide title and escrow expert Alan Chang said that while squatter-committed murders are rare, it’s not out of the realm of possibility when dealing with illegal tenants who have occupied vacant properties.
“When you are dealing with people committing crimes, it may not be uncommon for the crimes to escalate over time,” Chang told Newsweek. “While not all squatters may become violent, those that were more predatory in nature may also have more violent tendencies.”
Ben Caballero, a broker based in Texas, attributed much of the squatting incidents in America to a lack of law enforcement.
“When the reward for crime is greater than the risk, unethical people make simple business decisions and commit more crime,” Caballero told Newsweek. “I see no reason for societal improvement until that is reversed.”
Ryan McCall, principal with McCall Sweeney & Silva, PC and an expert in eviction law, said squatters are generally not a priority for law enforcement, especially if the homeowner is not making any proactive steps to remove the squatter from the property.
“This is a tragic situation which is unfortunately becoming more common in the United States,” McCall told Newsweek. “It is almost impossible for parties that do not own a property to be able to remove a squatter and are often only left with the option to pursue trespassing or other minor criminal infractions against the squatter as a means to deter this type of behavior.”