Homeless Man Accused of San Diego Skateboard Attacks Charged With Additional Assaults – NBC San Diego

The man suspected by police of being a skateboard-wielding attacker in City Heights whose actions were captured by a nearby security camera is now also being charged in a pair of other assaults.

Two men were sent to intensive-care units on June 29 after being attacked by a homeless man with a skateboard. Both victims were struck in the head 15 minutes and just three blocks apart. Witnesses told NBC 7 that the attacker in both incidents looked similar. Police later described both incidents as attempted murders and said the suspect in the case is 25-year-old Bobby Mikel Lowe.

NBC 7’s Dave Summers shares surveillance footage from one of the attacks.

Both victims are now hospitalized with brain bleeds, according to authorities.

One week later, investigators with the San Diego Police Department said that Lowe had been charged with two other attacks:

• On June 28, Lowe allegedly hit another person with a blunt object in the 4200 block of 41st Street. This attack resulted in serious injury as well, with the victim transported to the hospital
• On June 29, (the same day as the two attacks reported last week), Lowe allegedly hit a third person with a skateboard in the 4700 block of El Cajon Boulevard, which resulted in a minor injury to the victim.

The residents and businesses around University and Fairmount avenues said last week that they were used to skateboard traffic on the sidewalks but using a skateboard for an ambush attack in the middle of the day was a first.

“It’s really sad because he’s a good person,” Giselle Dente said about her friend Jesus Estrada, who was injured in the second attack, near the intersection of Univerity Avenue and 44th Street. “He doesn’t hurt nobody.”

Police were called out a little after 1 p.m. after Estrada was knocked unconscious by a man who beat him over the head with a skateboard. The attack was recorded by a security camera at a nearby market.

The second victim was being treated for a similiar head wound. Witnesses told NBC7 he was beaten by a man with a skateboard fitting the same description on Fairmount Avenue near Polk Avenue.

It appeared from the video — and witnesses verified — that the attack on Estrada was unprovoked. The suspect can be seen in the video approaching Estrada from behind, then swinging the skateboard at Estrada’s head

“It’s heartbreaking for everybody because you don’t want to see a brother or a sister on the streets living like this,” Dente said.

Police have identified the attacker as a transient. Amazingly, Lowe was arrested in connection with Tuesday’s assaults when he returned to the Fairmount scene while police were investigating. Lowe faces a series of charges with the June 29 attacks, including multiple counts of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated mayhem, and assault with a deadly weapon, as well as a probation violation. Police said Tuesday that he now faces two additional charges assault with a deadly weapon as well as one count of causing harm to an elderly person or dependent adult.

Police told NBC 7 last week that the suspect had recently been released from jail after being charged in another assault. In that attack, the victim was hit with a pole and was also hospitalized.