Police continue to investigate homeless attacks
Two transients were assaulted about 30 minutes apart in downtown San Diego and Golden Hill today, and investigators were working to determine whether the crimes were related to other recent attacks on the homeless in various local neighborhoods.
Shortly before 4 a.m., someone struck a man with an unknown object in the vicinity of 13th and A streets, then rode away on a bicycle, San Diego Police Officer Frank Cali said. The victim was taken to a hospital in unknown condition.
A second assault occurred while the victim was sleeping near the intersection of 19th and C streets shortly after 4:30 a.m., according to the officer. The second victim was unable to describe his attacker. A possible suspect was detained in the vicinity of Laurel and Brant streets in Bankers Hill and was being questioned, but he was not immediately placed under arrest, police said.
It was not immediately clear if either beating this morning was related to a similar beating in the East Village on Wednesday, a series of assaults on at least a half-dozen transients around Westfield Horton Plaza last month or a spree of attacks around San Diego that left three homeless men dead and a fourth gravely injured.
San Diego police said that shortly before 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, an unknown assailant bludgeoned a homeless man with a hammer in the area of Eighth Avenue and G Street. The victim told investigators that a man on a blue bicycle had struck him in the head.
The body of a homeless man was found in flames in Bay Park on the morning of July 3. The following day, a man was wounded in the Midway district and another was killed in Ocean Beach. A man was also fatally injured and set on fire on July 6.
Authorities have said the same unidentified assailant was responsible for all four cases, which were not believed to have been related to Wednesday’s attack. On June 21, at least six sleeping transients were struck in the head with an unknown object within a four-block radius of the Westfield Horton Plaza mall. Police said a man and a woman seen with a mountain bike were considered suspects in those cases.
