Kyli Watts Los Angeles woman left with brain damage after homeless man Jonathan COle attacks her with garden shears in random attack along street.
A 24-year-old woman walking along a Los Angeles street has been left with brain damage after she was seemingly randomly attacked by a homeless man wielding garden shears.
Kyli Watts was walking down the street on October 10 when Jonathan Cole, 30, approached her and stabbed her in the head with a pair of shears in a completely unprovoked attack captured on surveillance video (see below).
Watts was able to walk away from the scene to a nearby café and call her mother for help. Friends say the four-inch blades were stuck in her head and that doctors had to surgically remove them.
Despite surviving the attack, Watts remained hospitalized while recovering at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, KTLA reported.
Watts has been warned she could face permanent issues with her sight and balance due to the stabbing. She lost her job in tech recruiting weeks before the attack, and does not have health insurance.
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A GoFundMe has been set up to help her, with Kyli set to remain in hospital for at least another week.
Police arrested Cole, who they say has no fixed address. He faces possible charges for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
Watts’ mother, Amy, said she is upset about the attack but has no anger toward Cole, who left her daughter with a traumatic brain injury.
‘There is no ill regard toward this human, no anger, no bad feelings,’ the mother said. ‘We’ve been a foster family for 15 years taking care of some severely mentally ill individuals. She understands that this is a very sick person.’
The attack on her daughter and others in cities across the US are a result of a ‘social and systemic failure’ for the mentally ill, Amy said.
According to police, Cole encountered a man and a woman at a bus stop after stabbing Watts. Once the woman told him he could not have her lighter, Cole then threw a full jar of pickles at her, striking her in the shoulder.
The man then chased Cole to a nearby supermarket where he was then detained by police.
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Both events were ‘random and completely unprovoked,’ police said.
‘This is a problem that we as a society have to look at and figure what’s next, because this is just going to continue to get worse,’ Amy said.
Los Angeles has seen an increase of 7% in homicides in the last year, while New York City has experienced a 19.6% increase in felony assaults.
The US has seen a jump in violent crime in the aftermath of post pandemic and the ever widening divide between the haves and have nots and the ongoing decay and malaise of a disaffected populace.
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