A Homeless Man Reached for What He Thought Was a Drink, Then Three California Teens Threw Water on Him Instead
"Are you next?"
Three teens from Sacramento, California, are facing backlash after videos surfaced showing them approaching strangers in public, including unhoused individuals, and throwing water on them before running away. According to The Nerd Stash, the footage came from a small social media account that TikToker TizzyEnt later covered, drawing widespread attention despite the account’s limited content.
One of the most criticized clips appears to show an unhoused man near a van as the group approached him, holding a container of water. He appears to reach toward it, seemingly expecting to receive a drink, before the teens threw it on him and fled.
Other footage reportedly shows people targeted while riding bicycles, walking dogs, or sitting in vehicles, with one clip showing a person approaching a car while apparently carrying a metal pipe. When one commenter warned that “karma will get you all,” the creators reportedly responded, “Are you next?”
What California Law Actually Says About This
Under California Penal Code 240, simple assault applies when someone has the present ability to commit a violent act against another person, and Penal Code 242 covers battery, defined as any willful and unlawful use of force against another, regardless of whether the contact causes injury. Courts have specifically held that throwing a liquid or object at someone that actually makes contact can qualify as battery, and both offenses are typically charged as misdemeanors carrying up to six months in jail.
Whoever approached the woman in her vehicle while apparently carrying a metal pipe could face a more serious charge than the water-throwing itself. Under California Penal Code 245(a)(1), assault with a deadly weapon applies to any object used or brandished in a way capable of causing death or great bodily injury, and a pipe held in a threatening manner while approaching someone would likely qualify.
Unlike simple assault, this charge can be filed as either a misdemeanor or a felony, and a felony conviction carries up to four years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Notably, a defendant doesn’t need to actually touch or injure the other person for the charge to apply, since brandishing the object to intimidate is enough.
Whether this could be charged as a hate crime is a more limited question than it might seem. California’s hate crime statutes, Penal Code 422.55 and 422.6, apply enhanced penalties when a crime is motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or similar protected characteristics, but homelessness itself is not currently listed among those protected categories under state law.
That means a targeted pattern of harassment against unhoused people specifically would not automatically trigger California’s hate crime enhancements the way bias based on those other characteristics would. If any of the teens involved are minors, their parents could face separate financial exposure.
Under California Civil Code 1714.1, a parent or guardian with custody of a minor who commits willful misconduct causing injury can be held jointly liable for damages, capped at $56,400 per incident as of the most recent adjustment. Unhoused people remain a significant and closely tracked population nationally. HUD’s 2025 Point-in-Time count found 745,652 people experiencing homelessness across the country on a single night in January, including 266,320 living unsheltered.
California alone accounted for 181,934 of those individuals, with 115,583 counted as unsheltered, according to the same federal data.
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