CA Mayor Wants 'A Purge' To Address Homelessness: 'Give Them Free Fentanyl'

LANCASTER, CA — The mayor of Lancaster is drawing attention for recent inflammatory comments about the city’s homeless population after he said he wants to “give them free fentanyl” and called for “a purge.”

The first remarks occurred at a city council meeting Feb. 25 in response to a person who was speaking during public comment about the unhoused community in Lancaster.

“What I want to do is give them free fentanyl,” Mayor R. Rex Parris said, according to a recording of the meeting posted on the city’s YouTube channel. “I want to give them all the fentanyl they want.”

In an interview last week with FOX 11 Los Angeles, Parris said he didn’t regret his comments.

“I don’t think anybody took me literally,” he told the station. “In fact, it’s so easy to get fentanyl on our streets today that it wouldn’t have made any difference if we did give it away.”

In the same interview, Parris said that unhoused people were responsible for a large percentage of the city’s robberies, rapes and murderers, and added that Lancaster has housing and health services for those experiencing homelessness but some refuse the resources.

“Quite frankly, I wish the president would give us a purge because we do need to purge these people,” he told the outlet.

Johnathon Ervin, who lost to the longtime mayor in last year’s election, is working with third-place finisher Mark Maldonado on a recall attempt, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Ervin told the Times in response to Parris’s remarks that Parris “has no business in public office.”