Suspect Arrested in String of Vicious East LA Attacks

Great news today.  Sergio Garcia, the suspect -- who is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law -- in a string of horrific crimes against women, is in custody. 

I have never been to prison or even jail.  But based on what I have heard from people with real-world knowledge, this guy is screwed worse than a chomo.  Regular citizens want to kill him, much less the prison population.  People sit in prison missing their grandmas' funerals all the time.  I can't imagine how the authorities will protect him. 

This was a great press conference -- the part that was available in English-language outlets.  There wasn't the customary 20 minutes of mutual self-praise amongst agencies.  And I could see that the various agencies had taken the matter very, very seriously.  If only the English-speaking media reciprocated. 

But I only found it on one outlet, and they chopped it in the middle.

That isn't a broken system.  It's a system that reflects the ethos of its creators and the violence against women that they demand as entertainment.  A&E will eventually cover it. I will look for more on this in Spanish tomorrow.

TL/DR:  Sergio Garcia allegedly committed a series of violent robbery/sexual assaults on women young and old on the streets of Los Angeles, documented from at least July 10, 2023 forward.  The subject on two occasions attacked random victims, minutes apart.  Two of the most-serious attacks happened within half an hour of each other.  He returned to the home of one woman the next day to steal her car.  One of the elderly women almost died. 

Because of ample CCTV evidence, police were able to develop a suspect profile and name Sergio Garcia, 21.  They tracked him down to Tijuana, Mexico, where the US Marshals apprehended him.  He was expedited and is in custody in California at this time.

I'm pleased, thrilled actually, at the amount of elbow grease that went into (a) putting this series of crimes together, like taking it seriously even though the first few were younger women who weren't seriously injured; (b) culling the CCTV footage to connect all of the cases and develop a suspect profile; and (c) locate him in TJ and expedite him with lightning speed.  :D  Barkeep, a round of donuts on me.

Side note:  ABC News was the only outlet that had this press conference available at all in English, at least that I could find.  And they chose to cut it off arbitrarily, before someone in a blue shirt spoke, and go to the other news.  Absolutely infuriating.  I'm disgusted at the limited coverage in general.  A&E will eventually do an episode on it.

Other side note:  I'm wondering if the California prison system may have limited the availability of this content within its walls, like an in-house version of child-safe, in an attempt to protect his life. 

The LA Times has more information on the crime spree itself.  In the press conference it was noted that although July 10 is where law enforcement picked up the trail, it is very unlikely to be this subject's first day of violence against women.  There are undoubtedly other injured parties out there.

I will leave you with this accounting of the crimes in question, pasted from the LA Times article linked above.  Best wishes to all of the injured parties.  Great thanks to the law enforcement people who worked so hard on this.

• Luna said the search for Garcia began after he allegedly assaulted a 67-year-old woman at around 6:15 a.m. July 15 in the yard of her East Los Angeles home. Investigators working with colleagues from the Los Angeles Police Department determined it was one in a string of attacks on women in the L.A. area.
• Garcia approached the victim from behind, pulled her hair and threw her to the ground, where he repeatedly punched her in the face, officials said. Garcia was startled when a neighbor began to yell at him, they said, but continued to punch the woman two more times before he rode away on a bicycle.
• Luna said that, within 72 hours, East L.A. detectives had learned of two similar attacks inside the city limits with a suspect who matched Garcia’s description. By July 18, he had been identified as the alleged perpetrator.
• The sheriff said Garcia was suspected of assaulting and robbing an 84-year-old woman in the 5200 block of Via Corona Street in East Los Angeles about 30 minutes after the assault on the woman in her yard. In the second case, he allegedly stole the woman’s car keys.
• On July 16, the next morning, Luna said Garcia returned and stole the car and, shortly after, crashed it near the 10 Freeway and Western Avenue.
• A third woman, age 55, came forward after seeing the department’s public outreach on the suspect and reported that she had been assaulted, also in East Los Angeles, on July 10 at 6:45 a.m. in the 1200 block of South Woods Avenue. Charges have been filed so far in those incidents.
• Luna said a fourth possible victim in the sheriff’s territory came forward just two hours before Wednesday’s news conference announcing Garcia’s arrest.
• LAPD Chief Michel Moore said his department had at least four separate assaults in which Garcia was a suspect — one on July 10, another on July 11 and two more on July 15. Moore said he believed Garcia could be responsible for other attacks: “We have likely only identified a small sampling of his activities.”
• According to the police chief, the string of attacks began July 10 when a man matching Garcia’s description followed a woman as she walked under the 110 Freeway near Olympic Boulevard and L.A. Live Way and attempted to sexually assault her.
• Moore said Garcia was also suspected in an attack near Chick Hearn Court and Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles on July 11. Garcia allegedly slapped a woman on her backside and sexually assaulted her, he said.
• On July 15, about three hours after the East L.A. assault on the 67-year-old woman, Garcia allegedly approached a woman who was walking home from church in the 1300 block of South Alvarado Street, hit her in the face multiple times, knocking her unconscious, and robbed her.
• Minutes later, in the 1300 block of South Burlington Avenue, Moore said, he allegedly grabbed a woman who was rummaging through the trunk of her car and sexually assaulted her.