2 arrested at last in horrific beating of disabled homeless man
Tai Lam was a 67-year-old disabled homeless man who was kicked to death nearly two years ago in San Francisco as he slept in the middle of the night on Sutter Street in the Financial District.
The video shows the assailants kicking Lam in the alcove of a building where he had been sleeping.
The suspects appeared pretty clearly on camera, so San Francisco police publicly released the least violent and graphic parts of the videos, hoping to get help from the public to identify the attackers.
Both were booked on charges of murder, robbery, elder abuse and assault with great bodily injury.
Cagney declined interview requests, but department sources sketched out the details: DNA broke the case, but it took a while to get a match from evidence found at the scene.
A routine DNA sample was taken and entered into the evidence database, which helped SFPD’s crime lab get its match, police said.
Idaho, on charges of grand theft, possession of stolen property and more, and Cagney and his partner flew there to interrogate him on Sept. 21 for the Lam case.
Stull, police said, gave explicit details about kicking and stomping Lam, and told the investigators there was no provocation by Lam or interaction with him beforehand.
In a joint operation with Stockton police, they searched a Stockton residence on Friday and found additional evidence that police said linked him to the crime.
