BROOKHAVEN, Ga. — A new perspective is coming to light after a woman was stabbed in the back while she was walking with her son along the Peachtree Creek Greenway in Brookhaven, according to police.
Friends of the woman, whose identity has not been released, say she was pregnant and forced to have an emergency C-section following the attack. They also say she had to have another invasive surgery to save her life.
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The baby, who she was just five-months-pregnant with, is now in the neonatal unit at a local hospital. Both the baby and the mother are expected to survive.
Officers said the man approached the woman, who was walking with her son, and tried striking up a conversation with her. When she started to leave, police said the man stabbed the woman in the back. Her three-year-old son was not injured in the attack.
Dr. Thaddeus Johnson is a former police officer who now teaches criminal justice at Georgia State University. He says the randomness of this attack, along with the jogger shot in Buckhead, can be attributed, in part, to the growth of the metro region.
“What we see with growing cities, that tension in their growth, you have more transient population rise, and now you have a lot more strangers,” Dr. Johnson told Channel 2′s Matt Johnson.
These attacks are part of an increase in violent crime across metro Atlanta that Dr. Johnson says may need to be met with more investments in communities.
“This issue is bigger than the policing because we can’t just arrest our way out of this issue,” he said.
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Channel 2 Action News found plenty of lighting and even cameras along the trails but some residents now want something more.
“It would be really nice if we have some patrols. Some patrol officers in the bike riding along,” said Tenisha McDonald, who found the trail two weeks ago and has been walking it every day.
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Brookhaven police told Channel 2′s Sophia Choi that is coming as soon as their new headquarters next to the Greenway is finished.
“So we do have plans for a bike unit, have some sort of Polaris vehicle that can easily get in the trail back there,” Sgt. Carlos Nino with the Brookhaven Police Department.
McDonald says seeing more officers on the trails will send a strong message.
“So people can know that, you know, it’s not just us out here, we have security people around,” she said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the injured woman’s family with medical bills and has already raised more than $28,000. You can donate here.
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