A Claremont police officer interrupted a man as he viciously attacked a woman at a bus stop on Indian Hill Boulevard before sunrise Sunday.
Police said the man, identified as Dion Knight, 20 of Pomona, leaped a fence to escape as the officer drove up to the assault in progress, just north of the San Bernardino (10) Freeway in Claremont, at 4:50 a.m. But a search found him, and he was arrested.
“The victim related to officers that she was sitting on the bus bench when the subject approached her and began touching her,” said Claremont police Lt. Karlan Bennett. “He then struck her repeatedly in the face and knocked her to the ground.
“He began strangling her, and as he was doing this, he told the victim that he was the Grim Reaper and that he was going to kill her.”
A Claremont police officer driving north on Indian Hill Boulevard spotted the attack at the bus stop at Indian Hill Boulevard and Oak Park Drive. Knight saw the officer and ran into the parking lot of Ability First, 480 S. Indian Hill Blvd., where he jumped a locked gate behind the location, police said.
The officer saw the woman’s bloodied and swollen face, called paramedics and requested additional officers to search for Knight, he said.
Knight was eventually caught, he said, and the woman positively identified the Pomona resident as her attacker.
Knight was held in lieu of $2 million bail Sunday at the Inmate Reception Center in Los Angeles.
The incident unfolded in Claremont, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.