Detectives Search For Hammer-Wielding Attacker In East Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Sheriff's investigators continue to work Friday to track down a man who used a hammer-like weapon to seriously injure two people in separate unprovoked attacks within a few blocks and hours of one another in East Los Angeles.
Both assaults occurred last Friday, the first in the 1400 block of Triggs Street, according to Detective Ed Sanchez of the sheriff's East Los Angeles Station.
In the first attack, he approached a man Sanchez described as "elderly" and, without provocation or warning, struck him with a "hammer-like weapon."
And when the elderly man fell to the ground, the attacker kicked him, Sanchez said.
A few hours later and less than three blocks away from the first crime scene, a woman standing in front of a home was attacked in a similar way – also by a man wielding a hammer-like weapon.
The woman was struck several times "about the head" and knocked unconscious.
Sanchez said the same person is believed to have committed both crimes, though the descriptions provided to investigators varied slightly.
In the first assault, the attacker was described as a heavyset Hispanic man, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, wearing a straw hat and a blue windbreaker-type jacket.
In the second attack, he was described as 6 feet tall, around 240 pounds and wearing a black jacket and pants.
Anyone with information about the attack was urged to call the sheriff's East Los Angeles Station at (323) 264-4151 or 911.
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