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Editor’s note: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence and profanity.
Street Life Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that provides resources to people experiencing homelessness in the Midpeninsula, has come under scrutiny after a video of its security guard harassing a homeless man surfaced online.
The incident was filmed by Tim Moon, a former employee of Street Life Ministries, who posted the video on social media earlier this month. It shows Kevin Valley, the security and facilities manager of Street Life, verbally threatening and physically pushing his body into a homeless man at one of Street Life’s Menlo Park “meal and fellowship” events last year. Moon alleges that Street Life Ministries threatened to terminate his contract if he posted the video. He decided to release it nearly one year later, on June 2, 2023, after his contract was terminated for reasons unrelated to the incident.
Street Life Ministries describes itself as a non-denominational organization that serves the homeless and at-risk population of the Midpeninsula. It meets weekly at sites in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto. At its biweekly meal and fellowship events, adult and youth volunteers serve food to community members who need it and provide referrals for shelter, addiction recovery and other personal support.
Valley was hired as both the security guard and the Redwood City site facilities manager at Street Life Ministries in 2020. According to Street Life Ministries’ website, Valley is a liaison between clients from the streets and the ministry.
Moon, who worked as a musician for Street Life Ministries, said he took the video on June 9, 2022, outside of the Menlo Park train station. It’s one of three locations where Street Life Ministries “meet[s]on the streets for people who are on the streets.”
Lead Pastor and Executive Director of Street Life Ministries David Shearin confirmed Moon was working for Street Life Ministries when the video was recorded but declined to confirm Moon’s role at Street Life Ministries.
In the video, Valley can be seen standing over and repeatedly cursing at the homeless man, known to the local community as Michael Jackson, as he sits on the ground near a bus depot at the Menlo Park train station.
Valley can then be seen telling Jackson several times that he is banned from the event, but Jackson persistently refuses to leave. Jackson said he was there to get food. Valley puts his body up against Jackson as Jackson’s hands are in his pockets, the video shows.
Valley can then be heard telling the man, “I’ll knock you out. I’ll knock you the f—out” and “I will hurt you so bad you dumb b—.” Valley can then be seen gesturing to the man with his hand and saying, “You ain’t s—.; look at you.” Valley then physically pushes his torso into Jackson causing Jackson to slightly stumble backwards.
Menlo Park Police said they were called just before 7:30 p.m. after the interaction between Valley and Jackson had escalated.
According to the Menlo Park Police Department, two officers “were dispatched on a report of a subject at the bus depot threatening to beat up Michael Jackson. [The] other party involved was determined to be security.”
Moon said that Shearin called him the day after the event and threatened to terminate his employment contract with Street Life if he released video of the incident. Moon said he decided to post the video this month now that he no longer faces the threat of termination.
“I have people asking me why I don’t work there anymore. And this is one of the reasons why is because [of] what’s in this video, the way that some of the homeless people get treated,” Moon said. “Homeless people have issues and I realize that, but we all have issues, but for [Street Life Ministries] to treat homeless people this way is just the wrong thing [to do],” Moon said.
Shearin denied allegations that he threatened Moon not to post the video and he declined to confirm the reason for Moon’s termination.
According to Shearin, the video of Valley is taken out of context. Shearin said that Jackson attended another meal and fellowship event about a week prior to the interaction between Jackson and Valley shown in the video and allegedly exhibited disruptive and dangerous behavior at that event, including verbally threatening to kill one of the food servers. According to Shearin, there were several children in attendance at that event. Shearin said he called Jackson after the encounter to tell him he was banned from Street Life Ministries events until further notice, and Jackson proceeded to appear at the Street Life Ministries after their conversation.
According to Shearin, Jackson had received services from the organization for years before the incident occurred and confirmed that he was homeless at the time of the incident.
“In the 15 years I’ve been leading this ministry, I can count on one hand where we’ve had situations where they’ve escalated to that point,” said Shearin. “Sometimes street gets dealt with by street and sometimes you just can’t help where the language goes. There’s no physical touching. None of my staff would ever physically touch somebody.”
Both Jackson and Valley could not be reached for comment. Shearin spoke on behalf of Street Life Ministries. When asked for Valley’s contact information, Shearin said his comments provide sufficient context for the interaction shown in Moon’s video. Shearin said Moon “is apparently attempting to use [the event] to discredit Street Life Ministries by publicizing that out of context video.”
Shearin noted that both he and Valley had experienced homelessness in the past. On Street Life Ministries’ website, Valley’s bio reads, “Although brusque and rough around the edges, Kevin does his best to maintain order and adherence to SLM rules in his capacity as Security.”
“If you had met Kevin, when Kevin first came to the ministry [compared] to who Kevin is today, he is 110% better, a better individual than he was when I first met him. Everybody’s going through a journey,” Shearin said. “We don’t deal with a very sterilized group of individuals…our folks don’t come all shiny and dressed up…we’re dealing [with] folks that are, you know, smoking or injecting methamphetamines on a regular basis, a lot of mental health issues.”
