Woman Stabbed in Point Defiance Park | We Miss Tragedy by 5 Minutes | Tacoma, Washington

We did not see the suspect or the victim but just talked to people who did minutes after. During our hike today a woman was randomly attacked and stabbed in Point Defiance Park. This happened about 5 minutes down the trail from us, if we had taken a left from the orange closed road trail back onto the blue trail heading west we would have seen the aftermath but instead I mistakenly took a right not realizing where I was on the map. If I had not stopped earlier to talk to an e-bike rider for 5 minutes we could have been in the thick of things and seen the attacker or been the ones attacked since that was the route I had intended to take. It took the police 5-6 hours to put out a description of the attacker, why? Even the news at 6 was reporting vague details about the attacker. We talked to 2 people on the trail right after this happened who saw the attacker run by them or intervened in stopping the attacker, they both stated it was a black male wearing all black clothing. By the time police put out a description the park was closed and everyone was gone, I wonder why the attacker got away? Maybe with a description the public could have known what we should have been on the lookout for. Even the zoo employees were amazed that the park was closed early at 3 and they were never told, this all happened around 1pm. A Reddit user report I saw later this evening reported 2 people walking behind the suspicious black male earlier and he had a weird vibe and smelled of marijuana so was smoking at the time or had just finished, they were coming up the blue trail from the Owens Beach Parking Lot, this all matched the description we were told by the people who talked to us on the trail. We are thinking of carrying our bear spray all the time now, maybe an ice axe to when in sketchy or close to city areas. I might even take something a little more powerful when I go to sketchy out of the way places with no cell coverage. The news has even left out the details of how the lady was rescued, I don’t understand. It is like they are trying to minimize what happened and just make it go away. I hope the lady who was attacked recovers and can get past her trauma, we might never know who that was, I hope she can tell her story if she chooses to do that. We did 4.7 miles today, it was a fun but disturbing hike. At the beginning of the hike you hear me talk about crime concerns here then we actually have crime concerns here, sad day in Point Defiance Park.
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