Andrew Truelove turned nationwide information final week after he allegedly breached safety at Rockefeller Middle and hurled a racist slur at NBC “At this time” present co-host Craig Melvin.
However his life had been unraveling lengthy earlier than then.
At 41 years previous, Truelove was unhoused. He had spent the final 20 years biking out and in of the felony justice system, locked up for crimes that included stealing indicators memorializing younger victims of the Sandy Hook bloodbath and grabbing a baby exterior a college.
Truelove was the topic of an in-depth profile in The Instances in 2023, capturing his life as a homeless individual on the streets of Torrance as he tried to acquire housing, meals stamps and healthcare.
Now, an image is rising of his path from Los Angeles to New York, the place he’s accused of hate crimes in an incident that unsettled “At this time’” present staffers already reeling from the kidnapping of host Savannah Guthrie’s mom.
Might 2023 photograph of Craig Melvin in New York.
(CJ Rivera/Related Press)
Crisscrossing the nation — from his hometown in Virginia to California, Florida and Maryland — Truelove moved between the streets, jails, homeless shelters and psychiatric services.
In latest months, he ventured underground, sleeping in New York Metropolis’s subway tunnels, in line with his half-sister, who requested anonymity to talk freely about her youthful brother.
Truelove advised her he most popular dwelling in a subway tunnel to being on the road, as a result of individuals didn’t hassle him down there. He didn’t thoughts the rats.
“He’s very sick and really mentally sick,” his half-sister stated, noting that he suffered from schizophrenia however refused to take his treatment.
Truelove was arraigned Friday on costs of housebreaking and menacing within the third diploma as hate crimes. If convicted, he may withstand 15 years in jail.
Based on the felony grievance, Truelove sneaked right into a restricted space of the Rockefeller Plaza foyer simply earlier than 9 a.m. on July 16, following an worker who used an identification card to swipe in.
On the backside of a stairwell, the grievance alleges, Truelove noticed Melvin and known as out his title. “The place is Roker?” he requested, referring to “At this time” climate anchor Al Roker.
Truelove then took steps towards Melvin, the grievance stated. He advised him: “You’re a n—.”
After he was arrested, Truelove allegedly advised Melvin: “I all the time wished to name a Black well-known individual the N-word.”
Truelove’s legal professional, Lawrence Gerzog, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
July 2023 photograph of Andrew Truelove sleeping in a car parking zone in Torrance.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Truelove’s psychological sickness, his half-sister stated, made it tough for him to carry out fundamental duties, resembling getting a job, paying payments or staying housed. It additionally fueled his irritability and erratic conduct, she stated.
His half-sister stated he described destructive interactions with Black individuals he encountered whereas dwelling on the streets. She stated she reminded him that he had additionally had many optimistic experiences with Black individuals, together with two who helped him whereas he was homeless.
Truelove grew up in Norfolk, Va., and attended Norfolk Collegiate Faculty, an elite personal day college. Later, he stated the bullying he skilled there may need precipitated his “conduct difficulties.”
Not lengthy after graduating from highschool, he began stepping into bother.
He was dismissed from the College of Virginia in 2003, he later testified in one among his felony circumstances, for threatening his dorm mates and campus employees.
At 18, Truelove was charged with making threats by way of phone and located responsible of misdemeanor assault.
At 21, he grabbed an 8-year-old woman by the straps of her backpack whereas wielding a wrench. A decide sentenced him to 4 years in jail for abduction, noting that his psychological well being issues possible performed a job.
In a press release printed within the Virginian-Pilot, Truelove stated he drove to Granby Excessive Faculty in Norfolk as a result of he thought bullies have been threatening the college.
He stated he encountered the woman there and “took maintain of” her backpack strap to point that she ought to return to a protected spot, “as he wished a transparent space … to threaten bullies if he discovered any.”
“At no level did I contact the woman besides as above, nor did I drag or push her,” he stated, including: “The ‘abduction’ enterprise is an entire fraud.”
Within the assertion, he stated he had been below psychiatric take care of greater than two years.
On the witness stand in 2010, the Virginian-Pilot reported, Truelove stated he gained 100 kilos in two months after docs prescribed psychotropic medicines. Anger about his weight achieve and reluctance to take medicines, he argued, led him to Granby Excessive Faculty.
A psychiatrist who examined Truelove testified that he had signs of bipolar dysfunction, together with melancholy and hallucinations.
“The entire anger and violence,” his legal professional stated in court docket, “is in Andrew’s thoughts.”
Truelove quickly got here to regulation enforcement’s consideration once more in Virginia. In 2012, he pleaded responsible to trespassing on church and college property.
Over the subsequent few years, he was charged with a number of counts of disorderly conduct, trespassing and violating probation. In 2013, he was charged with throwing a missile — which he later advised the Instances was a site visitors cone — at a shifting automobile.
More and more, his thoughts was preoccupied with extremist views and conspiracy theories, together with secret authorities cabals and false-flag operations.
By 2014, Truelove had come to imagine that the 2012 mass taking pictures at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty in Newtown, Conn., by no means occurred. He confessed to stealing two indicators memorializing the victims at playgrounds in New Jersey and Connecticut and was sentenced to at the very least a 12 months behind bars.
When Truelove arrived in Los Angeles in April 2023, he had desires of constructing a web site and possibly a social media empire.
He spent just a few days at Slab Metropolis, an off-the-grid neighborhood in Imperial County, then headed to Silicon Valley and San Francisco for a number of days in an unsuccessful try and get the positioning MyLifeStory.com off the bottom.
On Might 14, he rode an Amtrak practice again to L.A. and made his solution to Torrance, which he had beforehand visited to see the place scenes from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” have been filmed.
He spent his nights in a sleeping bag behind a shopping mall as he tried to acquire social companies and discover housing.
After being turned down a number of occasions, he secured a mattress at a shelter in Wilmington, the place he stayed for a couple of week earlier than being kicked out for repeatedly breaking the foundations.
He was additionally kicked out of a shelter in San Pedro after telling an worker that he wished to kill individuals who harmed him when he was a baby, which he stated contributed to his PTSD and temper dysfunction.
After The Instances printed the article about his experiences as an unhoused individual, a shelter on Skid Row supplied him a mattress, then helped him get again to Virginia.
In October 2023, Truelove pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor cost of destruction of property in Virginia and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. He known as a Instances reporter throughout his incarceration and stated he had been arrested for damaging a bench close to the seaside shortly after his return.
His half-sister stated he then traveled to Miami, pondering it might be a superb place to remain by means of the winter. However he discovered the town inhospitable to the homeless, she stated, and was unable to safe housing or any companies.
On Dec. 30, 2023, the Doral Police Division arrested Truelove, and he was charged with one misdemeanor depend of felony mischief leading to $200 or much less in property harm.
5 days later, he was arrested once more, this time on a misdemeanor cost of petty theft. His half-sister stated he stole one thing from a 7-Eleven in entrance of a cashier, hoping to finish up in jail so he may keep away from the day-to-day challenges he confronted on the streets.
Truelove pleaded no contest to each Florida costs. His half-sister stated he spent a number of months behind bars, after which she paid for him to take a bus to Baltimore, the place he checked into an inpatient psychiatric facility for a month earlier than being kicked out.
“He had such a pleasant place to stay and other people to be with, and he simply blew it,” she stated. “He’s sick. He doesn’t belong out in public out on the streets.”
Not lengthy afterward, Truelove traveled to New York Metropolis, the place his half-sister stated he frolicked in a number of shelters and psychiatric services.
Final 12 months, he checked right into a psychiatric facility, his half-sister stated, and gave the impression to be doing effectively. However after 4 months, she stated, he received into “an altercation” and spent a number of months in jail.
Within the 23 years since he graduated from Norfolk Collegiate Excessive Faculty, Truelove has amassed greater than 40 costs and citations. They embrace a number of in New York during the last 14 months: felony trespassing, reckless endangerment, felony mischief and third-degree assault with intent to trigger harm.
One of many costs, his half-sister stated, concerned slamming his hand on the hood of an NYPD van that was blocking site visitors in Instances Sq..
Not too long ago, Truelove advised his half-sister that he had a psychological well being standing examination in Brooklyn. She stated that after he spoke with a lady at a desk for quarter-hour, he was denied help.
Final Friday, Truelove didn’t enter a plea at his arraignment in a New York felony court docket. A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Legal professional’s Workplace stated the decide set bail at $10,000 and issued a full short-term order of safety for Roker and Melvin.
If Truelove results in jail for an extended stint, his half-sister figures, he’ll at the very least get a mattress and three meals.
