Kinard Shirley was one of 172 homeless people who died this year in Miami. He wasn’t somebody’s father or spouse, but he was a brother and a son.
Shirley, 37, was a day laborer at a downtown construction site near North Miami Avenue and NW 6th Street. It’s an intersection of history, transportation and commerce – the venerable Freedom Tower, the sleek MiamiCentral train station, and the upscale restaurants and shops that go with gentrification.
That’s where Shirley and his fellow laborer Marshall Ragsdale, 66, were fatally attacked with a metal pipe at about 5:45 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 16. A male-and-female couple also were bludgeoned; the woman was critically injured, but both survived…