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# Homeless man’s time served for manslaughter
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/homeless-mans-time-served-for-manslaughter/
- Published: 2004-09-08T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:01:21.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Daily Press staff*

A transient who was charged last fall with killing another transient has been released from jail.

David Brevig, 42, was released on July 1 after pleading no contest to involuntary manslaughter. He was arrested in November, after he allegedly assaulted Bobby Ray Capps at a campsite on an embankment off Interstate 10 and Lincoln Boulevard. The trauma to Capp’s head led to his death more than two days later. Apparently during the assault, Capps hit his head on a pole. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled that Capps died of cranial cerebral trauma.

It’s unclear what the motive for the assault was, but it appears Brevig was protecting another homeless man who Capps had gotten into an altercation with earlier. Witnesses said after Capps punched the homeless man, he walked about 50 feet down the embankment and laid down. Brevig arrived 20 minutes later, learned of the incident and then allegedly jumped Capps, witnesses said.

Brevig was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $200 in restitution, said Los Angeles District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. He was released from jail on probation.

But if he hadn’t been released on probation, chances are Brevig wouldn’t have spent the full sentence in county jail since facilities throughout LA are overcrowded and prisoners are released after serving 10 percent of their sentences.

“If you are sentenced to a year, you’re lucky if they spend a month (in jail),” Gibbons said.

Four jails have shut down in the past five years in LA County and the system deals with 70,500 inmates on any given day.

“We can’t hold as many people as we’d like,” said LA Sheriff’s Department Capt. Tony Argott. “We are releasing people that should be incarcerated.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 8, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090804.pdf?ref=smdp.com)