SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 20, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — Police are investigating after reports that a naked man entered an unlocked residence in the Rose Park area and punched a woman, who is in her 70s, before being chased away by others in the home.
The first call to police came from the area at about 5 a.m. Friday, said Detective Richard Chipping, Salt Lake City Police Department.
“Someone was trying to get into a car, a black male, naked, around 6 feet, (age) 30 to 40,” Chipping said. “By the time officers got there, the suspect wasn’t on scene, in the area around 1100 W. Morton Drive.
“Later, police got called back to the same area, and it was reported that the same guy had gone into someone’s house. The door was unlocked.”
The man, still naked, reportedly got into an altercation with residents, who did not know him, Chipping said.
“He struck an elderly woman and left the scene,” Chipping said.
Residents waited about 90 minutes to call police, and “due to the long time lapse, when we responded, we didn’t locate the suspect,” Chipping said.
The woman suffered minor injuries, but went to the hospital to get checked out, Chipping said, adding he believed it was a precautionary measure.
Chipping said there was no way to know what would motivate the suspect’s actions.
“It could be a ton of different options,” he said. “It could be someone in a mental state, someone with medical issues, someone could be drugged. There are apartments all around. It could be someone thought it was his own vehicle. It’s hard to pinpoint one thing or another for us, and hard to locate this individual with such a generic description.”
Chipping said there are only two takeaway messages he can identify:
“Lock your doors, and don’t wait an hour and a half to contact police.”
Don’t you mean West Pointe area? Rose Park’s western edge is Redwood Road. If you feel the need to name a neighborhood in which a crime has occurred shouldn’t you make an effort to name the correct neighborhood?