On Tuesday afternoon, a naked man brutally assaulted a Peruvian grandmother visiting her daughter’s family in Irvine, according to the Irvine Police Department.
According to the Orange County Register, the elderly woman, identified as Sara Hurtado, 75, by KTLA, was walking her miniature poodle near her daughter’s condo when she was assaulted Craig Andrew Ledbetter, 51, naked and “acting aggressively and holding a stick,” according to police Lt. Bill Whalen.
When police arrived, they had to taze Ledbetter, who lives down the street from the condo where Hurtado’s daughter and her husband Neil Fitzsimons live with their two children.
Whalen acknowledged that Ledbetter had accosted Ledbetter earlier on Tuesday. He said, “He had been acting bizarrely but the officers in their investigation were not able to…they did not have justification to take him into custody at that point.”
Fitzsimons told ABC 7 that he never expected such an attack, especially because Irvine has been called the “nation’s safest city.” He said, “We were expecting to be safe and something like this not to happen.” He added that Ledbetter cursed before he started punching Hurtado in the chest and slamming her down before sitting atop her.
Fitzsimons told KTLA, “This neighbor had come out of the house screaming, naked and attacked her from behind while she was innocently walking our toy poodle. Our dog tried to attack him and delay him a little bit. He was so annoyed with the dog, he took the dog by the leash and started spinning it around.”
Police said the dog’s collar came loose and it ran away, but was later found and returned to its home.
Ledbetter was arrested and booked on suspicion of aggravated assault, elder abuse, animal cruelty and resisting a police officer. Ledbetter is being held on $50,000 bail; his court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
Hurtado was left in the hospital with severe injuries.