2010-10-13 YOS PARK UPPER DRAIN EW P1020494
It was in this general area that the incident described below occurred. Various attempts to control the situation in this now sadly disused area have been tried.
By Ajay Singh, Patch Staff
Feb 3, 2011 6:59 am PT | Updated Feb 3, 2011 4:15 pm PT
Detectives are investigating the vicious assault on an Eagle Rock resident by a group of young men while he was jogging at the Yosemite Recreation Center last night, and the LAPD has stepped patrols in the area, which is near.
“We currently have Northeast Detectives working on the investigation and we have increased extra patrol around and within the park,” Senior Lead Officer Craig Orange told Eagle Rock Patch, referring to Yosemite Park, a largely desolate area south of the recreation center known to be frequented by vandals and graffiti taggers.
The unprovoked attack has shocked the Eagle Rock community. The , whose president, Michael Larsen, is a neighbor of the assaulted jogger, is looking at ways to respond to the attack. Larsen called 911 and tended to the victim’s wounds after he stumbled on his doorstep last night.
At about 9:30 p.m., said Larsen, he heard someone moaning and crying outside his house, which is adjacent to the “Rec Center,” as the Yosemite Recreation Center is popularly called. “First I wanted to make sure who it was,” said Larsen, “and then I saw it was our neighbor. He was bleeding and dazed and his fingers were broken.”
Larsen said his neighbor, who is in his mid-40s and lives near Addison Way, had gone to his own home first but found no one there.
He had been running at the Rec Center on the East side of the baseball field near Eagle Rock High, Larsen’s neighbor told him, when four or five male youths in their late teens or early 20s attacked him with skateboards and stole his cell phone. He had been jogging while listening to music on his cell phone, which has an in-built personal music device.
Larsen said the attack, which occurred around 9:15 p.m., left his neighbor with severe lacerations to his head, a broken hand and possibly broken ribs. “He was literally going into shock and was very confused,” said Larsen, adding: “He was probably knocked out at some point and had symptoms of somebody who had a severe head injury. He kept saying, ‘are my kids okay’ and ‘my fingers are broken.'”
Paramedics arrived within two to three minutes and three LAPD police officers in two patrol cars arrived within 10 minutes. Larsen said his neighbor was rushed to ER at a hospital in Glendale.-Photo by Eric Warren, 10-13-2010.