Two days ago, we told you about 14-year-old Khadijah Cruz. She is a resident of Hattieville Village and a student of Edward P. Yorke high. Earlier this week, she was on her way to school. She and other passengers hopped off the Hattieville Bus near the roundabout between Central American Boulevard and the George Price Highway. The quiet teenager was trying to get to classes, and shortly after she began her walk, an unknown assailant ran up and, out of nowhere, slashed her on the left cheek.
We warn you that the images of her injury are graphic but important because this innocent young lady was the target of a random and senseless act of violence. Her injury required 13 stitches, and since then, her family has been urging the police to canvass the crime scene. That's because they have done just this, and they have scouted 3 or 4 surveillance cameras in the area that could help police identify the assailant.
Today, her frustrated father visited our office to complain that finally, after several days of foot-dragging, the cops accompanied him to the La Popular Bakery in the area. That business has a camera that was pointing at the street, and the family reasons that it would have had the best angle to catch the fleeing suspect. The problem is that the surveillance cameras erase files older than a few days. And so, the footage of the day of the attack is already gone.
Here's how Khadijah's father expressed his rage at this discovery to us in an off-camera interview. Again, we warn you, the images of her injuries are graphic:
Voice of: Andy Cruz
"It's so sad that It's a situation that we didn't expect at all. She got off the school but to try and hurry to get to the next side of the boulevard, to get to another bus, to get to Edward P. Yorke. And, this was where, as she reached around the corner, by the blind spot, with the other students and teachers behind. A guy just walked up and slit her to the face. The way how the thing happened, the person got all so close to her that he was within arm's length reach. If it was something that happened closer, more than likely, he would have killed my daughter because it was definitely at her head he went. The size of the slit is not something that I could just process like that, that it will just get out of my head, and I could… As a matter of fact, every single time, I could just imagine this happening over and over. So far, I asked the police for assistance. This was whereby the person who did the incident ran past La Popular Bakery. La Popular Bakery is one of the closest cameras that is viewing the entire street and could have viewed part of the scene that happened. I find out Tuesday afternoon to the Police Station - Raccoon Street Police Station to report the incident. I asked if they could please review the camera for me because of the incident that happened to my daughter. It happens that the same video recording that I wanted to see from La Popular Bakery, they waited until today, Thursday morning, to actually show us a video, when after three days, the video is already deleted."
Daniel Ortiz
"So, their system automatically deletes videos after three days."
Voice of: Andy Cruz
"Yes, that actually happened, and it's so sad that in this entire procedure here, we are just suffering, and we have to take our time out to get around and try to get to people to find out what exactly happened, and the cops, so far, are no kind of help."
Andy Cruz tells us that although he experienced a reluctance from the police officers, he wanted to express thanks to Senior Cop Reymundo Reyes and two other officers who tried their best to help him investigate the matter.
