“when you stay in the rose lot, you’re part of the tribe, whether you want to be or not.”

Last week, a furor erupted in Venice after RV-dwellers were caught dumping sewage into the street at Pacific and Fleet. A resident who, for fear of reprisal, goes only by “Boston Dawna”, took down the RV’s plate number as it drove away, and called the police, who caught up with the vehicle at Sunset and 3rd. Officers arrested the owner of the vehicle, and also found more evidence of sewage dumping around Sunset and 3rd, the skid row of Venice’s RV community, where many of the Rose lot regulars won’t go. Hazmat teams were brought in, videos of the sewage made it to YouTube, and every news outlet from the LA Times to KTLA ran stories.

Selwyn, the illegal dumper, is a regular at the Rose lot, where he camps out at the north end with his wife, Lindsey, and their 15-year-old daughter. Even before the incident, he cut something of a notorious figure. As Antonio pointed out, his gray water tank leaked constantly, leaving a trail from his van down to the sand as the west side of the lot.

The gray water trickles slowly from the van to the beach.

I took these photos of Selwyn's RV several weeks before the sewage dumping incident, after Antonio pointed out that his gray water tank always leaked. You can actually see the pipe dripping.

After two days in jail, Lindsey, under whose name the vehicle is registered, was released, with no charges yet filed, though City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has said his office still plans to charge her. In the wake of the incident, as other Rose lot regulars have gone into damage-control mode, they’ve warned Selwyn to stay away. They’ve since been parking at the Santa Monica lot, a stone’s throw from the Venice lot, just north of the city line. But RVs can’t park on the street in Santa Monica. So at night, the Rose lot community suspects he has been coming back to Venice.

Selwyn is unrepentant, however. When Antonio called him, several days after the incident, he called Boston Dawna a “jackass”. And this week, he exchanged the following texts with Antonio:
Selwyn: Just to put to rest any misinformation, the city attorney rejected the case and also called it a bullshit charge.

Antonio: Bullshit? Clearly you have no idea will affect the big picture. This will be used as an example against all RV-dwellers for years.

S: Bullshit was the word the supervising city attorney used. Apparently prosecutors don’t take it very seriously. You’ve been reading too much inflammatory shit on the net. We’re good. Lindsay is much better now, love to the gang.

A: What you did was wrong, and you’re not taking responsibility. You made the homeowner look like a big champion to the public and media and she’s the jackaass?

S: what are you, ace? The rose lot moral authority? You going to come over here and kick the shit out of us with your dogs and sticks? You’re some variety of junky, yes? You and your buddies are selling and using drugs 60mph, yes? We don’t have any money. None. You want to lend us money to dump?

A: No, I have never sold drugs. I’ve been holding my sewage for two weeks now because I don’t have the money to dump. You can’t justify what you did. Be a man, admit.

From there, Selwyn began threatening to have Antonio prosecuted if he didn’t stay away, and calling the Rose lot community a “tribe”. Finally, Antonio replied, “You best stay away from Venice. We don’t want shit-dumping trash around here.”

“When you stay in the rose lot, you’re part of the tribe, whether you want to be or not,” said Ian, a 20-something, rainbow-haired local who lives in a house on San Juan.

On Thursday night, a week after the incident, Antonio sat in his RV watching TV with Tina and Tommy. Suddenly, Raven screeches to a halt outside on his bike, shouting, “He’s on Rose! He’s on Rose!” Immediately, ten people are outside.

“We have to do it now,” said Ian. “We have to show him he can’t come here anymore.”

The plan was this: the group would go confront him, demanding that he stay away from Venice. Ian would videotape, so as to have evidence that the RV community doesn’t like illegal dumping any more than the residents do.

Raven biked ahead, while the rest of the group walked up Rose Ave towards 6th, where Raven had seen the RV. “I have a bad feeling about this,” Antonio said. “Everyone is too excited.”

But as soon as Selwyn saw Raven, he bolting, driving south down 6th, and Raven couldn’t keep up. By the time the rest of the group arrived, he was gone. They walked around in circles for the next half-hour, looking for the vehicle on Sunset and on 3rd, but found nothing.

The situation has the Rose lot crew spooked, afraid that any infraction, however small, will be used to drive them out. Antonio said he doesn’t want to dump his gray water down the storm drain like he usually does. He’s even afraid someone might pull the valve and open his black water tank, just to sabotage the RV community. “All it would take would be for someone to pull the lever, and it’d be all over.”