Hillcrest Task Force Makes Ninth Arrest

A police task force investigating a series of assaults in the Hillcrest, North Park and Midway areas made its ninth arrest in three weeks when it took a 38-year-old man into custody Saturday for allegedly beating another man on University Avenue.

Police say Robert Hall, 38, of San Diego and another unidentified man were punching Daniel Chambers in the head, arms and groin on University Avenue when four police units arrived. Both men started running and Hall was captured but the other man escaped and has not been found.

“We have no motive for this assault,” said Sgt. Ralph Garcia, a member of the task force. “The victim was not robbed. Two people just came out of nowhere and started smacking him.”

Hall is believed responsible for at least one other assault in a series of 35 so far in the Hillcrest-North Park area, police said. In recent weeks, task force detectives have been trying to determine whether other robberies and assaults in the Midway area near the Sports Arena are connected.

The task force has made six felony arrests for robbery or attempted robbery and three assault arrests since the team was formed Dec. 16, police spokesman Bill Robinson said.

Police Chief Bob Burgreen assembled the team in response to an initial report of 50 “wilding” attacks in North Park and Hillcrest in which blacks attacked whites for no apparent reason.

Since that time, police have stopped using the racially charged term, lowered the number of assaults to 35, and have speculated that many different series of crimes are taking place in those areas.

For example, four Navy men were arrested last week for beating and robbing a number of men, including two Navy personnel, in the Midway area. All four suspects were from the submarine tender Dixon.

The first two men to be arrested in the series were part of what was characterized as a “gay-bashing” incident Dec. 18 but one of those in custody said that he, too, is gay.

Saturday night’s arrest in the 600 block of University Avenue seems to fit the pattern of the original “wilding” series. Hall is black, Chambers is white, and nothing was taken from the victim, consistent with “wilding” activities in which assault is the motive and robbery an afterthought.

Task force members are reluctant to classify any of the crimes.

“We’ve got a lot of different types of everything going on and it’s not up to us to say anything is part of a series,” Garcia said. “We’re a team out here and our job is to make arrests and go on from there.”

Police said Chambers, the victim in Saturday’s assault, was taken to Hillside Hospital and released that same night. They declined to say why they believed Hall was responsible for a second assault.