CLEVELAND — The tranquility of a walk in the park was shattered for two teenage siblings last week.
“I really promote the kids get out into nature,” Walter Gachuk, the father of the two, said.
At about 8 a.m. on Aug. 13, the brother and sister went to the Metroparks Brookside Reservation. Minutes later, Gachuk said he had received a call.
“I got a call at 8:18 [a.m.] from my daughter who was hysterical,” he explained.
Gachuk said his 14-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter were near the Meadow Ridge Picnic area, and they were feeding the deer when a man started yelling at them. He said his daughter yelled back.
“Why don’t you just leave us alone, he continued with the verbal assaults. My son had an apple in his hand because they were feeding the deer at that point. He threw an apple towards the guy not meaning to hit him just to get his attention off his sister and put it back on him. So, the man started to charge him,” Gachu said.
That’s when Gachuk said his son took out a pocketknife he was using to cut apples, hoping to deter the man, but he said it didn’t work and they started fighting. The teenage boy stabbed the man in the side but the fighting continued.
“He was trying to fight back, he had dropped the knife so the man at that point grabbed my son’s back of his head with his left hand and drove his right thumb into my son’s left eye,” explained Gachuk. The boy’s sister called 911. Metroparks Police arrived within just a few minutes and started looking for the man.
But it was a call from a hospital that led police to the man they believe was responsible for the assault.
“Hospitals are mandated by law when something like that happens, they notify the local jurisdictions, shootings, stabbings, anything of serious nature. This hospital did what they were supposed to do and notified our dispatch center, in turn we sent our officers over there and we were able to successfully ID the man, go to his house and make a physical arrest,” Chief of Police Cleveland Metroparks Police Department Kelly Stillman said.
According to police and Gachuk, the ordeal started because the two teenagers were feeding the deer.
“I encountered him about a week and a half ago, he yelled at us, my daughter and I were feeding the deer, that was the beginning of the exchange Tuesday morning when they were at the park actively feeding the deer,” Gachuk said.
“A lot of people have various opinions about deer and their population," Stillman said.
The man was arrested and charged with strangulation and assault.
Stillman stressed the Metroparks are a safe place to enjoy the outdoors, but like any public place, be aware of your surroundings.
