Washington Park Incident Report

On 6/11/16 at approximately 1544 hours, Officer Acosta #0044 and I responded to a radio call of a battery that occurred at Washington Park. The comments of the call stated the Victim, later identified as Eric Onate, was waiting at the Food 4 Less on Washington Bl and Lake Ave.

Upon our arrival to the Food 4 Less, Onate was in the back of the Pasadena Fire Department, (PFD), Rescue Ambulance, (RA), number 33. Sergeant Grisafe #3275, was inside of the RA with Onate attempting to get further information and descriptions of the suspects. Onate told Sgt Grisafe that he was beat up by 9 or 10 male blacks. When Sgt Grisafe asked Onate if he could describe the suspects he said, “They are black, and beat me up cause I am Hispanic.” Onate would

not give any further description of any of the suspects to Sgt Grisafe.

Due to the laceration on Onate’s head, RA 33 transported Onate to the Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Officer Acosta and I met with Onate at the hospital and interviewed Onate about the incident. My interview with Onate was digitally recorded and I downloaded the recording into VeriPic.

It should be noted that as I interviewed Onate about the incident Onate also answered questions to himself that I did not ask, and spoke to himself as if he was speaking to someone else. I asked Onate if he suffered from any mental disabilities and he stated, “Yes.” Onate said he was diagnosed bi-polar and schizophrenic. I asked Onate if he took his medication regularly and he would not give me a clear yes or no answer. When Onate was asked about the suspects he changed the number of suspects from 9 to 10 to 15 to 17. His statements were very inconsistent throughout the interview.

I asked Onate what he was doing at Washington Park. Onate said he was listening to Motley Crew on his cell phone while drinking beer. Onate said he was approached by suspect-1, described as a male black. Suspect-1 punched him in the throat. Onate said the punch knocked him to the ground. He said he stood up and told suspect-1, “I bet you can’t do that again.” He said suspect-1 ran to an unknown location and returned with approximately 17 other male black suspects. No further descriptions on any of the other

suspects.

Onate said that when the other 17 suspects approached him they knocked him down to the ground and started kicking him in the head. He said he was able to stand up and run towards the Food 4 Less. Onate stated the suspects ran after him but he was able to get away from them. He said they followed him until he got to the rear of the Food 4 Less.

Officer Sailor #7661, Officer Fujiwara #2941 and Sgt Grisafe searched Washington Park and the surrounding area for any possible suspects and or witnesses and had negative results. Sgt Grisafe recovered Onate’s backpack and belongings from Washington Park. Onate said that he had a black cell phone next to his back pack which was missing. The backpack and belongings were returned to Onate at the hospital.

I asked Onate if he had the backpack on his person when the incident occurred. He said no, the backpack was lying on the ground and his cell phone was next to it playing music. I asked him if the suspects forcefully removed any property from his person and he said no.