photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A worker can be seen retrieving supplies from a vehicle near the entrance to the city-sanctioned homeless campsite on Thursday, July 13, 2023.

It was 6:45 a.m. last Saturday, and Steve and April Evans were 15 minutes into their walk on North Lawrence’s Kansas River levee trail.

That’s when April yelled: “We are being chased!”

Her husband, Steve, had walked many steps ahead of her to gain a better sight line of the city-sanctioned homeless camp that sits below the levee near Johnny’s Tavern. Steve had his camera because he needed to take pictures of the camp — not to document any of the people in it but rather for information in a budding property dispute between the City of Lawrence and the drainage district for which Steve serves as a board member.

He had taken his three to four photos, then turned his back on the camp as he walked toward his wife, who was standing closer to the Kansas River bridge.

“We are being chased!”

April had seen a man running from the camp toward Steve’s turned back, and that is what she thought to say.

The words spun Steve.

“I turned around and saw a person, 10 feet, plus or minus, with an ax raised above his head,” Steve said.

The next thought was simple and quick enough.

“So, it’s time to run,” he said.

The thought that came to April as she was running toward Sixth Street trying to wave down a motorist was not so simple.

“I thought you probably were getting chopped up while I was running for help,” she said, addressing her husband.

Steve said he didn’t “get too far” before he realized: “I’m not going to outrun this guy.”

“I turned around with the idea that I was going to have to protect myself,” he said.

But then the ax, raised above the man’s head, fell to the ground. The man had decided to drop it, said Steve, who had feared he would be killed.

Unbeknown to Steve, a woman dressed in a city-issued T-shirt had begun running from the camp too. The city worker stationed at the camp must have been yelling something, Steve presumes. He doesn’t know what she said, but he figures it had something to do with the man’s decision to drop the ax.

“Thank God he did,” said Steve.

By about 10:30 a.m., Lawrence police had arrested Brandon Eugene Snow, 32. He was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Snow has told police that he never threatened anyone with an ax, but was upset about photos being taken of the camp where he lives. Charges remain pending against Snow.

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Steve and April, 72 and 66 years old, respectively, told their story to the Journal-World on Friday, in part, because they thought it would be therapeutic. The couple also told their story because the Journal-World reached out to them to confirm speculation that they were on the levee trail that morning due to a land dispute involving the City of Lawrence.

That is accurate, Steve said. The Kaw Drainage District contends that the City of Lawrence has located a portion of the city-sanctioned homeless camp on property owned by the drainage district, despite the district never giving the city permission to do so. Steve was taking photos of the camp for an upcoming meeting of the drainage district’s board, of which he is one of three members.

In that regard, the Saturday morning incident was a misunderstanding. Snow, Steve said, definitely was upset that photos of the camp were being taken. Snow seemingly thought they were being taken to dehumanize the occupants.

“He was yelling, ‘What are you taking those photographs for? What are you going to do with them?'” Steve said. “The last thing he said was, ‘Don’t you think we’re human?'”

The incident left the couple shaken. Steve said he was traumatized by the threat. He said the feeling grew after he learned on Monday that Snow had been released from the Douglas County Jail on an own-recognizance bond, meaning he did not have to put up any money to be released from custody.

Both Steve and April said they were surprised and disappointed that a Douglas County judge would release a felony suspect accused of wielding a deadly weapon on that type of bond.

“That did not help a traumatized person to hear that,” Steve said.

A spokeswoman for the city, Laura McCabe, citing Snow’s privacy, declined to say earlier this week whether Snow was still living at the camp. She did say that the city did not consider “off-site” incidents or previous behavior to be barriers to living at the camp, which she described as a “low-barrier temporary emergency shelter.”

Steve said he’s not the only one traumatized by the incident. The couple have lived in North Lawrence since 2018, in a house along the levee.

“We are on the levee every day,” said April, who along with Steve bikes about 1,500 miles a year.

“It is an extension of our home,” Steve said of the levee trail.

April is not sure when they will ever return to that section of the levee. It is one of many adjustments being made in North Lawrence. April said residents are becoming more accustomed to seeing homeless individuals on bicycles pulling small trailers filled with odds and ends that are deposited nightly into unsanctioned camps in the woods. The wooded area near their home has more people living in it now than it did two months ago, both said. Now, the couple are seeing what are clearly city-owned tents from the sanctioned campsite being erected in the woods near their home, which is supposed to be off limits for camping.

All of it leads Steve to say that the North Lawrence neighborhood is reeling.

“I would say the neighborhood, to a degree, is traumatized,” Steve said.

“And getting worse,” April said.

“We empathize with the homeless community,” Steve said. “We kind of get the big picture of the challenges they have and the challenges the city has. Nonetheless, we don’t feel as safe and comfortable in our house and neighborhood like we used to.”

Steve said he does want the city to take action. He thinks it is time to find a new location for the sanctioned camp and the various unsanctioned camps around the community.

“The only thing that can effect change right now is to relocate the campsites away from the neighborhoods,” he said. “I don’t think it is any more complicated than that.”

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Steve said he believes plenty of people in North Lawrence are worried about what could happen next. The city originally said it would disband the city-sanctioned camp in June, as it opened a new “shelter village” of tiny homes for the homeless along North Michigan Street. But that project has been delayed until at least late 2023 as the city failed to find any entity interested in operating the facility.

Many North Lawrence residents are becoming concerned that the number of homeless people will continue to multiply in the neighborhood, and the burdens on the neighborhood will grow.

“I think my concern would be that with a higher density of campers and more people traumatized and angry, there is just a high likelihood of something really bad happening,” he said. “You fill in the blank, whether it is violence or something else, nothing good comes out of that.”

But for now, Steve has to worry about himself. Both he and April said they are feeling better emotionally now that a week has passed. While they physically were not injured, the emotional toll of the incident has been significant.

“I think I’m doing OK,” Steve said. “I psychoanalyze myself and you go from that fear of being killed, which is surreal, to the next step of being traumatized,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it other than being nervous and really uncomfortable.”

The next phase, he said, was “extreme anger.”

“I was really, really angry, and after that you go back and forth,” he said.

In the days that followed, there was the inevitable task of communicating with people he knows about the incident. Even that brought its own challenges.

“I would come close to breaking down while writing those texts,” Steve said. “I still feel that way right now.”

“I can hear it in your voice,” April said.

“I don’t know how long it takes to disappear,” Steve said.