Officials removed surveillance cameras before sexual assault at Tacoma park
TACOMA, WA - After two women were randomly attacked over the last year in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park, officials are now looking to invest in surveillance cameras.
The man who investigators said sexually assaulted a woman at Point Defiance Park last week, is still on the loose.
Tacoma Police have released no new information on the suspect, and no surveillance footage has been released.
No video will come from Point Defiance Park, because there are no surveillance cameras within the 760 acres of the park, officials said.
This is the second time a woman was randomly attacked in the park in less than a year.
In February, investigators said that Nicholas Matthew tried to murder a woman with a knife in the park. Matthew was on the run for more than a month before he was caught trying to flee the country.
Point Defiance stabbing suspect told victim 'you need to meet your maker' during random attack: docs
The man accused of randomly stabbing a woman walking along a Point Defiance Park trail said he attacked her because he believed she was a "pedophile" and that she needed "to meet [her] maker," according to new court documents released.
At the time of that incident, Seattle cameras were temporarily installed into the park, officials with Metro Parks Tacoma told FOX 13 Seattle.
"After the event that happened, we had our security contractor bring in mobile camera trailers, and those were in place for three or four months. Then, when things start to quiet down, we really kind of took a look at the value of what those tools were giving to us, and we reached the collective decision that those mobile trailers weren’t useful enough to the police department to provide the data they need. So, we made the choice to remove them," said Joe Brady, deputy director of regional parks and attractions.
Now that a second attack has happened in less than a year, Brady said Metro Parks Tacoma is looking into a permanent response.
"I’ll be real honest, I’m not really excited about having to be the person in charge of Point Defiance Park and its long and storied history, you know, service life for this community, to be the one that needs to make the decision on installing permanent security cameras in it. I would love if we didn’t have to have that resource, but it’s like I mentioned, this is now becoming an unfortunate trend where we need to adapt and give our partners in law enforcement the data that they need to fight crime," said Brady.
Brady tells FOX 13 Seattle this change will impact the budget, which has already been established, but it is an action they need to move forward on immediately.
The park also has one to two security guards who patrol during the day. Brady said there are no talks on increasing those numbers.
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