
Now the question is this: Did Sanders beat up on his girlfriend and hold her family hostage just because he thought she was fucking his buddy? And if he did beat her up, did Sanders really mean it? Or did he assault her as a way to get back on prison welfare? It's an important legal distinction. Because, if he didn't really mean it, he probably shouldn't be eligible for the program. Last week, I acted on a tip from a friend of mine and cruised over to the dry banks of the Mojave River on the edge of Victorville, looking for a tent city that had supposedly sprung up there not too long ago. The rumors turned out to be true, although I'd be hard label the handful of raggedy tents sticking out from behind a row of tall bushes a "city." It was more like a tent encampment, which is redundant, but accurate. This was rock bottom, folks. Life in a tent in the shadow of a landfill on the outskirts of a dying subprime suburb on the edge of the Mojave Desert 100 miles east of Los Angeles is maybe about as far down as a man can fall. At least on this continent. Two years ago, Victorville was the second-fastest growing city in America catering to the lowest-income homebuyers that banks could find. Now, two years later, it's quickly turning into a 21st-century ghetto: an isolated outpost of cheap, abandoned housing, no jobs, high school dropout rates of 50 percent and rising, and absolutely nothing at all to do besides speed. I got to the tent town Tuesday at mid-afternoon only to find it all but deserted. Everybody was either out looking for work (depressing) or actuallyatwork (depressinger) except for two guys hanging out in a truck. One of them was a Latino guy named Robert with faded prison tats running up his arm. I half-expected him to give me another of those "I had a mortgage, a car, and a job, then I realized I was just a paycheck away from homelessness" sob stories you always read in tent-city stories, but his story was way more simple and stark. Basically, he'd gotten out of jail a few months earlier, couldn't find work, and moved into the desert where the temperature hits subfreezing levels at night this time of year. His only saving grave at this point was a girlfriend with a minimum-wage job who gave him food, a daily ration of cigarettes, and helped keep him warm at night. "I'm not sure how long I'll be able to live like this out in the cold," he told me, "I'll probably be going in soon. At least on the inside I'm not dependant on anyone. There I got a place—food and lodging. Out here, I got nothing." This guy was actually thinking of breaking his parole just so he could be sent back to jail. And don't mistake this for someShawshank Redemption-lite "I can't make it on the outside," poor-poor-me lazytalk. While he was telling me this, Robert was completely level-headed and matter-of-fact. To him it was a completely pragmatic decision, like some middle-class shmoe weighing whether or not to uproot the family in order to take better-paying job. You know we live in an insane, fucked-up country when an ex-convict feels better living in a concrete box under 24-hour surveillance than he does living as a "free" man. I guess freedom isn't all we think it's cracked up when it means you're broke and live out in the freezing desert in a shitty tent. Anyways, that's about it. How was your Thanksgiving? YASHA LEVINEVICTORVILLE • A man held a family of four hostage threatening to harm them with a gun Wednesday morning as he tried to get away from law enforcement officials after he attacked his girlfriend, officials said. San Bernardino County Sheriff's Victorville station deputies quickly arrested the man and no one in the home was harmed, Karen Hunt, spokeswoman for the Victorville station, said. No gun was found. Roland Sanders, 35, of Adelanto, went to his girlfriend's home in the 15600 block of Yucca Avenue at about 6 a.m. One of the victim's roommates called 911 to report Sanders was threatening and attacking the victim and accusing her of cheating on him. Sanders got out of the van refused to comply with [Deputy] Mooradian's orders and ran away, officials said Neighbors told deputies Sanders ran into a home and that the family was still inside including several small children, she said. They also reported they heard Sanders threaten the family with a gun. Sanders, who had been previously arrested for battery, was arrested for domestic abuse, false imprisonment, burglary, evading officers, domestic abuse and for an outstanding parole warrant. He is being held at West Valley Detention Center.