SANTA ANA, Calif. (KTLA) — Police have released a surveillance video of a woman accused of assaulting a veteran outside his apartment complex in California and have asked for help finding her.
Just after 8 p.m. on Oct. 21, Randy McDonald heard a woman yelling and screaming outside the complex, which houses formerly homeless veterans, according to a Santa Ana Police Department news release.
McDonald, who lives on the third floor, said he had served as a medic in the Air Force from the late 1970s to the early 1980s and thought he could help, so he went down to talk to the woman.
“Because no one else is doing it. I thought by the cops, the time they got here, it might be too late, cause I didn’t know what the situation was. I didn’t know if there was another person out here assaulting her,” McDonald told KTLA. “I just did my job as a veteran.”
He said he let the woman in the lobby and tried to make some phone calls for her before they went back outside. McDonald thought the woman may have been homeless.
But things changed when she asked him for money for a hotel room, the veteran said. He told the woman he didn’t have the money to help her, explaining that he had just gotten off the streets himself in June after being homeless for most of the past decade.
McDonald said that’s when she attacked him, grabbing him by the shirt and punching him, and hitting him multiple times in the face and head, according to the news release.
The woman then walked away, but the attack was captured on video.
“Her violent tendencies is what — it scares our detectives. Our detectives are looking for her, looking for someone that might be able to identify her,” Santa Ana police officer Sonia Rojo said.
The woman is described by police as Black, about 20 to 30 years old, around 5 feet, 2 inches to 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and heavy set. She was wearing a pink jacket and tan leggings.