Truckers grieve for homeless man who cared for stray dogs

The homeless man called the vast asphalt-covered truck yard in Commerce home, and the truckers treated not only him but his two faithful dogs like family.

The truckers would buy tacos at the lunch truck for the man and his dogs, Spike and Chaparra. He would polish the rims and wheels of big rigs and watch over the trucks at night. A couple of truckers even took him on hauls to Arizona and beyond, appreciating his skills behind the wheel.

A security guard who spent his days choreographing the movement of big rigs to warehouse bays bought an old van so his homeless friend wouldn’t have to sleep under the night sky.

They marveled at the affection he showed for his dogs, bathing them with shampoo from a hose that a security guard let him use, and grieving when Chaparra was killed a few months ago by a car.

“He used to say that his salvation would be his little dogs,” said trucker Jose Sosa, 53.

Instead, Spike kept vigil over the homeless man’s body early Tuesday after he was shot four times in the head. Sosa placed three votive candles on the cracked, bloody asphalt where he fell. Now, the trucker community in this industrial town is in mourning, and police are searching for a killer.

L.A. County sheriff’s officials said that the shooting occurred shortly after 1 a.m. and that people found the man’s body after hearing gunshots in an alleyway of warehouses on Indiana Street south of Union Pacific Avenue. Lt. Fred Corral of the L.A. County coroner’s office said that the homeless man was 49, and that he has been identified, but that his name is not being released until his next of kin are notified. Corral said the man was identified through fingerprints on file from numerous arrests.

But that was not the side of the man the truckers said they saw.

A Mexican immigrant, the man was known only by his nicknames. Some people knew him as “Chilango,” a slang term for someone from Mexico City. He was humorously profane, good-natured and prone to exaggerated movements, gyrations and even doing little jigs when he spoke, said Jose Manuel Lopez, 32, the security guard who bought the van.

Lopez said he appreciated the man’s company late at night when things grew quiet. The homeless man would offer to get him something to eat. Eight months ago he decided to buy a van for the man. Another trucker sold it to Lopez for $650, and the homeless man insisted on paying half, which he did in installments.

Truckers and nearby business owners said they had heard that the man used to own a video store on Olympic Boulevard but that he went broke and ended up on the streets. He took pride in caring for stray dogs.

“He loved those dogs. I’d tell him let’s go eat, and we’d go to the lunch truck and he would say, ‘I want this and my dogs want this,’ ” recalled trucker Mario Solis, who let the homeless man sleep in his green and white Peterbilt big rig on weekends.

His friends are stumped as to why someone would kill him. Truckers said the warehouses can be targets for burglars. They surmise that he may have been killed because he saw something.

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hector.becerra@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.