Hours before dawn on March 22, Terry Hopkins, at six feet five inches and 370 pounds a bear of a man, awoke inside of a tent on 14th and Mission streets to his girlfriend Kristina screaming.

She pointed to a stranger inside of the tent in which the couple and a friend had been sleeping. The man was crouched on the ground, clutching a knife.

Moments later, Hopkins was bleeding profusely from his lower leg.

“The guy was looking for a different dude. Terry kicked at [him] to try to get him to go out of my tent. And the dude reacted by stabbing him,” said the friend, who was in the tent during the attack and asked that her name be withheld. “That moment forever changed my life.”

Hopkin’s attacker unknowingly pierced an old gunshot wound on his victim’s lower leg, severing a carotid artery. During 14 hours of surgery, Hopkins suffered a cardiac arrest and slipped into a coma. 32 days later, his family took him off life support.

He died in the hospital, his girlfriend by his side. He was 35.

Violence in encampments

To those living in tents or without shelter, violence is part of life on the streets. The National Coalition on Homelessness found in a 2016 report that in the last two decades, 1,657 reported acts of violence have been committed against individuals experiencing homelessness and 428 victims have lost their lives due to violence.

In December, a double homicide at a tent encampment at 16th Street and South Van Ness rocked the Mission – the murders remain unsolved.

“A lot of people are being victimized out here,” said Kristina. During the month that Hopkins was in the hospital, Kristina said a friend of hers was beaten inside of her tent near San Bruno Avenue by a patron of an after-hours nightclub in the area.

“She was in her tent and somebody started shaking her tent and punching her through the tent,” said Kristina, alleging that the club-goer targeted her friend’s tent because his car had been broken into.

Such acts of violence – as well as rape and murder – she said, are common, but “nobody is talking about that.”

“A lot of people get hurt out here, especially women, by people that aren’t homeless,” she said. “The guy who did this to Terry, he isn’t homeless.”

Police arrested a 37-year-old man near 15th and Julian streets in connection with the murder, but the suspect has since been released due to insufficient evidence, according to a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office.

Kristina said that neither she nor Hopkins knew the suspect, but that she does not believe him to be homeless.

“This guy wasn’t from our homeless circle at all,” said Kristina, referring to the suspect. “He’s not on the street in a tent and he doesn’t hang out in the streets at a tent.”

Encampments – and the communities and partnerships that form in them – provide minimal protection for those living on the streets.

“The only somewhat safety you got is if you have five tents lined up against each other,” said a friend of the couple, Chris, who is also homeless. “But women out here, if you are in a tent by yourself, it’s the worst thing ever.”

A beloved “bully”

Chris, who referred to Hopkins as his “twin” because they were both the big guys, named his newborn daughter, who was born while Hopkins was in the hospital, Terry Lee, after Hopkins.

“That’s [Terry’s] first and middle name,” said Chris. “I didn’t even think twice about it.”

Still, he said, Hopkins would often bully him and others on the street. “You have to act different to survive out here. You have to act like a hard ass. But of course not everyone is a hard ass.”

It was through his rough exterior, his sometimes violent outbursts and his sizable collection of bicycles that Hopkins earned respect on the streets. That kept him and those in his good graces safe.

Bicycles were Hopkins’ life.

“That’s how he made his money,” said Kristina, describing what she called a “game of points, money and drugs and prestige of bikes.”

“Terry was a big guy and big into bikes. All the men out here are. But he had a big heart too,” said a woman named Elizabeth, who also camped in the 14th and Mission Street encampment. “It seemed like he was our protector. He would’ve done anything to protect his girl.”

Hopkins’ friend, who hosted him and Kristina in her tent the night of the attack, said that Hopkins was a bully with a “soft spot.”

Even in death, some felt protected by him.

“My friend keeps telling me that it was his time to go so that I wouldn’t,” the woman said. “But I’m so happy he was there. I would have been in there by myself.”

“He kept me out of the bullshit,” said Kristina. She credits Hopkins with getting her off the streets by encouraging her to accept placement in the Mission’s Navigation Center.

Following her stay there, Kristina was placed in a residential hotel, where she remains housed. Unable to stay at the hotel with her, Hopkins, who was homeless for most of his life, remained on the street – but nobody, including his girlfriend, seemed to know exactly where.

“Nobody knew where he slept – he would just appear,” said Chris, adding that many times, Hopkins would show up at Chris’ tent in the middle of the night to eat his food or to rest.

“He would come in and lay down in my tent like it was his house. He would come in and cook. I would get so mad at him,” said Chris. “He had a big heart and yeah, he bullied people around. But who doesn’t out here. You have to survive.”

More often, however, Chris said it was Kristina who was sitting in his tent, waiting for Hopkins – sometimes for hours – to show up.

“Im hurting for her,” said Chris, sobbing. “What happened to him, it was the wrong place, wrong time. He was laying with his girl. And that’s something that she’s been trying to do for so long.”

The 14th and Mission street encampment was removed after the stabbing, but on April 21, the night that Hopkins was taken off life support, some of the campers returned to the intersection to honor him with a vigil.

Kristina instructed Chris to wrap a bike chain around a utility pole, a few steps from the spot where Hopkins collapsed after the stabbing. She then threaded the chain with roses.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time together towards the end – he just fell asleep everywhere,” said Kristina. “But that night, I was cuddled up with him.”