A 19-year-old man has been arrested threatening and injuring a 9-year-old girl in Rancho Cucamonga.
The incident took place shortly before 10:45 PM on October 7, 2020, inside the living room of a residence located in the 8400 block of Grove Avenue.
The suspect, Luis Juan Diego of Rancho Cucamonga, was angry at the child because he believed she had stolen money from him and broken his cell phone. “Juan Diego grabbed the victim by the neck and began choking her,” according to the release. “When he released her, he picked up a knife and threatened to kill her.”
The girl’s mother was also in the home and heard a loud noise coming from the living room. When she entered the room, she found her child crying as the suspect kept screaming at her.
The woman quickly took her child and fled to the home of a relative, where she called Rancho Cucamonga police. When deputies arrived at the scene of the incident, Juan Diego fled out of a back window and tried to jump over the back fence, but police caught him before he got away.
Deputies searched the home and found the knife Juan Diego used to threaten the girl sitting on the counter near the front door.
The suspect was arrested for inflicting injury on a child, threatening to commit a crime with a knife, and obstructing justice. He was booked into West Valley Detention Center on $50,000 bail.
