A 51-year-old Burbank woman was assaulted by a man she did not know on the 4100 block of Kling St. on Monday, April 28, at 4:55 p.m. Police arrested the suspect, Chukwuemeka Okafor, a few blocks away in the north alley near Kling St. and Clybourn Avenue.
The victim had parked her vehicle and was walking towards her residence, when the suspect approached her and asked for a light for his cigarette, according to Sgt. Darin Ryburn of the Burbank Police Department. The victim kept walking and the suspect followed her and continued to say things to her.
The victim walked out of a nearby apartment complex and back onto Kling St., when she turned around and told the suspect to stop talking to and following her.
That’s when the suspect, Okafor, struck her with his fist five or six times on the head, added Ryburn, and the victim screamed for help.
Three maintenance workers nearby saw Okafor, a 23-year-old Burbank resident, hit the victim in the head and witnessed the victim yelling for help. The workers ran over to intervene and Okafor fled the scene.
Officers arrived and found Okafor a few blocks away in the alley and arrested him for criminal terrorist threats.
The victim sustained a one-inch laceration to her forehead, a large contusion along her left cheek and a laceration on the bottom of her right foot, added Ryburn. She was treated at the scene by paramedics.
Okafor was booked at the Burbank Jail and his bail initially set at $50,000. However, the charge was changed to battery with serious bodily injury, a violation of penal code 243 (d), and his bail was increased to $250,000. He is being held in the L.A. County Jail and was due in court Thursday, May 1.
