Assault Suspect Chose Wrong Women to Pick On

Every morning, Patty Rodriguez jogs before going to work at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where she investigates sexual assaults.

Tuesday morning, she fell victim to one.

Deputy Rodriguez, 37, said she and her running partner, Deputy Kim Thompson, 32, were jogging on Mednick Avenue in East Los Angeles about 7:30 a.m. when a 22-year-old man grabbed her buttocks.

Rodriguez tried to detain the man but let go when he tried to hit her with a rock, she said in an interview. The man escaped.

They Spot Suspect

The two women continued their run, hoping to see the assailant again, Rodriguez said. Just before completing the course, the women saw him on Atlantic Boulevard.

“I just wanted to get him,” Rodriguez said. “I am so sick and tired of women not being able to (be safe on) the streets.”

As Thompson, the better runner, chased the assailant, Rodriguez went to a house and called 911. After a 10- to 15-minute chase over more than a mile, Thompson caught the suspect at Woods Avenue and the Pomona Freeway.

Rodriguez caught up with her just as uniformed deputies arrived.

“When he saw the deputy behind me, he wasn’t going to go without a fight,” Rodriguez said. The suspect struggled about three minutes before he was subdued, she said.

‘Put His Hands Up’

“Finally, he just tired out and put his hands up,” Thompson said.

Aurliano Diaz of East Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and sexual battery and was being held on $2,000 bail.

The incident did not stop the women from completing their run. Instead of riding back with deputies, they jogged half a mile to the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station. Rodriguez is based there; Thompson works on gang problems out of the Firestone station.

The women normally run three or four miles a day. “I got about a seven-mile run in today,” Thompson said. “I was exhausted.”