The son of former NFL player Kevin Johnson called for justice after his father was killed at a Los Angeles homeless encampment where four people have been murdered over the past four months.
Branden Johnson, 27, urged police to solve the string of killings that claimed his father’s life, and restore safety to the Willowbrook neighborhood where his dad was found dead in an encampment.
“Let’s get justice,” the son of the slain football star told The Post. “This is unfair to my father, and to the other people that lost their lives down there.”
The younger Johnson, a security guard who lives in Carson, said police haven’t told him much about who might be responsible for his father’s death. His father was found dead Jan. 21 at the age of 55.
Two detectives told the slain football star’s son that investigators have been conducting interviews with potential witnesses but have not identified any suspects, he said.
It’s even possible a serial killer could be behind the killing of his father and others at the South LA homeless encampment, he said.
“I have no clue,” the younger Johnson said. “That’s what hurts the most.”
Police have identified four people killed since October at the homeless encampment located on Compton Creek, which runs along a portion of the Los Angeles River.
Besides Johnson, Michelle Steele, 52, was shot in the head there on Oct. 5, police said. She died Nov. 12 from those injuries. Octavio Arias, 52, was found beaten to death at the encampment on Dec. 4, according to police.
And Mauro Alfaro, also 52, was killed there on Jan. 26. The cause of death was blunt force trauma, police said.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Thursday that investigators had no updates on the killings.
Johnson’s son said his dad’s slide from pro football fame to homelessness was fueled by injury and bad luck.
The Compton native and lifelong Angeleno was a star high school football player who competed at the collegiate level for Texas Southern before playing for the Patriots, Vikings, Raiders and Eagles, his son said.
Johnson’s son said the footballer followed his NFL football career with a stint in an arena league before becoming a high school football coach in Pasadena, a gig that lasted a few years.
By the early 2000’s, the elder Johnson was working part-time as a trainer, his son said, but since then he wasn’t working much.
In recent years, knee injuries forced Johnson to use a cane, his son said, and his memory had begun to trouble him, perhaps because of head trauma.
But the elder Johnson continued to put on a brave face, the younger Johnson said.
“My dad had been the person that everybody looks up to,” he said. “He didn’t want them to look at him as being weak or not the same person that they had known him to be.”
A few years ago the former football player broke up with his girlfriend, with whom he had been living with in Pasadena, his son said.
In the years that followed, Johnson didn’t have a permanent address and instead stayed with friends and family.
About six months ago Johnson began sleeping sporadically at the homeless encampment on Compton Creek, his son said, which was near the neighborhood in Compton where Johnson grew up.
That’s where police found the body of his dad.
The younger Johnson said he believes investigators are doing their job, but he hopes a break in the case will come soon.
“It looks bad over there, especially with four deaths,” he said. “That’s nothing that’s safe at all.”
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