Spokane security officer randomly attacked
SPOKANE, Wash. –March 29 2018
A security guard says he was randomly attacked by a man in a Walmart parking lot Monday night. Now the man is hoping his attacker is found.
“What if he had a gun? What if he had a knife? I might not be here right now to be with my family,” Craig Rutter said.
It’s something he doesn’t even want to imagine.
Just before midnight on Monday the Army veteran was working his second job as a security job. He was driving through a Walmart parking lot in North Spokane, when a man who had just walked past him with a couple of shopping bags walked up behind him and suddenly swung open his door.
“He reached it with his left hand, grabbed me by my shirt, and punched me in the head as hard as he could. It was a haymaker.”
Rutter says the punch actually knocked him out for a few moments.
“When I came to my senses, he was standing there yelling, ‘Are you tailing me? Are you tailing me?,'” Rutter said.
The man walked off as Rutter called police, he says he wishes they would have done more to find the man who had just attacked him.
Working full-time at the VA, Rutter says he picked up the security job so his wife could stay home with their kids.
“It scares me to death to know that it could happen any time… Who knows?” Rutter’s wife Tina said.
After what happened, Tina is even more worried about her husband at work. Rutter was diagnosed with a concussion and is missing work for a week, but he has a message for his attacker.
“Turn yourself in. You have no idea the impact that your random act of violence has caused.”
Rutter did get a good look at the man who assaulted him. He describes him as an African-American man in his mid to late 40s with medium build and a full beard and mustache. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black shoes.
Anyone with information about the attack is asked to call Crime Check at 509-456-2233.
