Sheriff’s deputies have called a community meeting in Rossmoor on Thursday evening to answer questions and concerns following an apparently random attack in which a jogger was cut and stabbed.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in Rossmoor Park, 3232 Hedwig Road.
The attack happened on Tuesday evening in the community near Los Alamitos, where crime is rare and neighbors say they recognize most people on the streets. The woman was jogging near Rossmoor Elementary School when the attacker came from behind – possibly on a bike – and cut her face with a knife.
The woman fought him off and tried to flee, but the man caught her and stabbed her twice more, including once in the hand as she tried to defend herself. A neighbor heard her screams and scared off the attacker, who fled on a bicycle, investigators said.
The Sheriff’s Department had hoped to develop a composite sketch of the suspect. But spokesman Jim Amormino said the woman cannot recall enough of what the man looked like to create a sketch. “Everything happened so fast,” he said.
The public has called in some leads that investigators are following, Amormino said. He declined to describe them in detail. “Bits and pieces,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just putting the puzzle together.”
Investigators still don’t know what motivated the attack, but Amormino said they are considering the possibility that it started as an attempted robbery. The man did not take anything before he fled.
The woman was taken to the hospital, treated and released.
“She did all the right things,” Amormino said. “She fought her attacker off. She screamed.”
Rossmoor – an enclave of leafy streets and well-kept homes behind red-brick community walls – has long drawn retirees and families with its crime-free reputation. Neighbors were hard-pressed to remember any recent violence there, and Amormino described the community as “one of the safest places in Orange County.
Still, he said, joggers and walkers should always go in pairs.
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