Other homeless people in Orange County may have been sickened by poisoned food

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Orange County Register June 1, 2020

At least eight homeless people in Huntington Beach, none of whom knew each other, were sickened in a series of food poisonings for which one suspect has been arrested so far, a spokesperson from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Monday, June 1.

“The victims were eight individuals who have no association with each other and nothing in common except that they all were homeless and were in Huntington Beach,” Kimberly Edds, public information officer for the district attorney’s office, said on Monday.

Several of the victims, one of whom is over 65, were hospitalized after eating food laced with oleoresin capsicum, a substance that the district attorney’s office described in a news release on Friday as “twice as strong as the pepper spray used by police.”

No one has died from the poisonings, but the victims suffered what the district attorney’s office said were symptoms that included “seizure-like symptoms, difficulty breathing, vomiting and intense mouth and stomach pain.”

At least two of the victims were hospitalized, Edds said. She could not say for how long or where. She declined to provide any other information on the victims or on the lone suspect arrested as of Monday.

The DA cancelled his presser due to unrest over the death of George Floyd.