{"id":146329,"date":"2026-01-23T13:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146329\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:59:13","slug":"kevin-johnson-former-nfl-player-and-oakland-raider-found-dead-at-los-angeles-california-homeless-encampment-in-apparent-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146329\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Johnson, former NFL player and Oakland Raider, found dead at Los Angeles, California homeless encampment in apparent murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES — Former NFL defensive lineman Kevin Johnson was found dead Wednesday morning at a Southern California homeless encampment. He was 55.<\/p>\n

Johnson was found in the Willowbrook area of Los Angeles after deputies responded just before 8 a.m. local time to a report of an unconscious man, sheriff’s officials said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Johnson’s cause of death was listed as “blunt head trauma” and “stab wounds,” and the manner of death was ruled a homicide, according to L.A. County Medical Examiner records.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe the former football player had been living at the encampment. They’re asking for help from any witnesses who might have seen what happened.<\/p>\n

Friends say Johnson had health issues later in life that led him to live on the streets, but they called him a wonderful friend who still made an impact on his community.<\/p>\n

“He was my best friend. I was best man at his wedding… Great guy, fun-loving. The community is going to miss him,” Bruce Todd told our sister station, ABC7 Eyewitness News in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

His friends said Johnson had health problems that they believe might have been the result of CTE.<\/p>\n

Johnson, a native of L.A., played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders from 1995-1997.<\/p>\n

After his career in the NFL ended, he played in the Arena Football League with the Orlando Predators and L.A. Avengers.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES — Former NFL defensive lineman Kevin Johnson was found dead Wednesday morning at a Southern California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[72884,7254,72858,72860,72862,72861,72859,48,52,51,47,13148,72857,50,49,72863],"class_list":["post-146329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-72884","tag-homeless-encampment","tag-kevin-johnson-football","tag-kevin-johnson-football-player","tag-kevin-johnson-nfl","tag-kevin-johnson-nfl-eagles","tag-kevin-johnson-nfl-homeless","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-ca","tag-los-angeles-california","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-willowbrook-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}