ATTACKS ON DENVER'S HOMELESS COMMUNITY TURN DEADLY.(MAIN)

Byline: ROBERT WELLER Associated Press

DENVER -- In a city where Jack Kerouac made the hobo life famous decades ago, a series of murders and beatings has transients sleeping with their gloves off so they can get to their knives to defend themselves.

Others have packed the Denver Rescue Mission -- not to escape the cold, but to sleep without fear.

In recent weeks, five homeless men have been killed and at least two others severely beaten. Police have blamed some of the violence on ``mall rats,'' groups of young men and women who gather near the trendy downtown shopping strip known as the 16th Street Mall. Many, like the victims, are homeless. …