L.A. Woman Is Attacked While Jogging in Central Park

Jogging in New York City’s Central Park in the autumn twilight, Deborah Maxwell-Dion of Los Angeles knew her honeymoon might take an ugly turn Saturday when she saw three teen-age girls use an umbrella to try to knock down a cyclist just ahead of her.

She signaled for help from her husband, running about 20 feet ahead on the path, just a few hundred yards from last year’s notorious “wilding” gang rape. But it was too late: The girls encircled her, making sarcastic remarks about her being “out of breath.”

Then, the white victim told police and recalled in an interview Sunday, the black girls knocked her to the ground as they shouted racial and sexual slurs. Less than 10 yards away, about five or six teen-age boys cheered on the teen-agers with chants of “Go, go! Get her!” Maxwell-Dion and her husband, Hal Dion, said.

Dion, 35, raced back to his 30-year-old wife and pulled her to safety as the girls threatened to “cut up” the couple, he said. After a verbal confrontation, he found police, who arrested the three girls near the scene on suspicion of assault and other charges.

Maxwell-Dion said she suffered bruises on her shoulder and back.

“Physically, I’m fine,” said Maxwell-Dion, an actress and faithful runner who plans to return with Dion today to their home near Griffith Park. “But the worst part is that it makes me scared now, and I’ve never had that in me before. I like to run by myself but now I don’t feel like I can . . . even after I get back to Los Angeles.”

After Mayor David Dinkins heard about Saturday’s 5:15 p.m. attack, he called Maxwell-Dion from his car phone to apologize on behalf of the city, she said.

Dinkins, aware that the city’s reputation as a tourist capital has been tarnished in recent months, wanted to “express his hope that (the couple) would not interpret this as anything more than the isolated instance that it was,” press secretary Albert Scardino said.

Police did not release the names of the girls--two are 14 and one is 15--because they are juveniles. They were released into the custody of their parents or guardians and will appear in family court to face charges of juvenile delinquency, third-degree assault, harassment and disorderly conduct, Officer Scott Bloch said. Investigators have classified the assault as an official “incident of bias,” Bloch said.

The attack comes at a time when New York City has drawn attention because of a sharply rising rate of violent crime. It mirrors two of the most notorious recent crimes that involved Central Park or an out-of-town visitor.

Last year, a female jogger was gang-raped by a group of teen-agers in Central Park in a case that brought the term “wilding” to national attention. And last month a 22-year-old tourist from Utah was stabbed to death in a subway station while trying to protect his mother from robbers.

Dion said the couple had stopped for the weekend in New York, where each had lived at length, after a monthlong honeymoon in Greece.

“It was an emotional day,” said Dion. “We’ve just come out of this with a feeling that we were so lucky that she wasn’t hurt more badly. . . . You think about the potential of what could have happened--that’s what scares you the most.”

Dion said the three girls appeared ready to continue kicking and beating his wife when he intervened. As other joggers and cyclists in the busy thoroughfare looked on, Dion said, one runner helped him get his wife to safety.

“I’ve always thought Central Park was one of the nicest places in the world to go running,” Dion said. “And then something like this happens. You feel like you survived a shark attack.”