Former Oakland Raider Kevin Johnson Is Killed at LA Encampment

A former Oakland Raiders player was stabbed to death at a Los Angeles homeless encampment this week, authorities said Friday.

Investigators found the body of Kevin Johnson, who played one season with the Raiders in the late ’90s, unconscious near the encampment on Wednesday morning, suffering from stab wounds and blunt head trauma. Johnson was identified on Friday, and his death is being investigated as a homicide, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office.

Johnson, who grew up in Los Angeles, played as a defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles for two years before joining the Raiders for 15 games in 1997.

Investigators believe that he had been living at the encampment in the unincorporated Willowbrook area of South Los Angeles. The Associated Press reported that friends said Johnson had health issues later in life that contributed to his situation.

Some told ABC7 in Los Angeles that they believed those issues could have been the result of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that’s become common among former football players.

The condition is the result of repeated traumatic brain injuries, which can happen repeatedly over the course of a football season. According to Dr. Daniel Daneshvar, a Harvard University professor and co-director of sports concussion at Mass General Brigham in Boston, CTE easily flies under the radar because it can only be diagnosed via brain analysis after a person’s death.

After another former Raiders player, Doug Martin, died in Oakland police custody in October, investigators told the Mercury News that his brain was being preserved for CTE testing.

Before his death, Martin had experienced mental health challenges that affected his personal and professional life, according to his former agent Brian Murphy. On the night of his arrest, his parents had been seeking medical assistance for him. He fled his home and entered a neighbor’s two doors down, where he was taken into police custody.

Daneshvar told KQED at the time that it’s common for people suffering from CTE to experience depression or emotional dysregulation. In addition to mental health challenges, CTE can cause problems with thinking, decision-making and memory.

“The areas of the brain that are affected with CTE are the areas responsible for our thinking and our behavior and our mood,” he said.

It’s not clear if Johnson will be evaluated for CTE. No motive for his killing or potential suspect information has been released at this time.