LBPD seeks man who assaulted, fatally injured 72-year-old woman

Police on Tuesday sought the public’s help to identify a man in his 20s who assaulted a 72-year-old woman who later died at a nursing home in Long Beach.

Long Beach Police Department officers were called just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 21 to the 1000 block of Redondo Avenue after Barbara Scott had been assaulted in the area, according to a department statement.

Officers arrived and found Long Beach Fire Department paramedics treating Scott for pain to her upper body, but she declined further treatment. She told police that she was in an alley and attempted to intervene in an argument between a man and another woman.

Scott said the man approached her and struck her in the upper body, causing her to fall to the ground. The man and the woman he was arguing with then left the scene.

Following her interview with police, Scott returned to her residence. However, officers were called again to the 1000 block of Redondo Avenue about 4:30 p.m. that day by the LBFD after paramedics were called to treat Scott, who was found unresponsive in her home.

Scott was taken to a hospital, and police learned she was later taken to a nursing facility, where she died on Sept. 16.

The coroner’s office listed the cause of Scott’s death as “sequelae of blunt head trauma,” and police are investigating her death as a homicide stemming from the assault on Aug. 21.

The suspect and the woman he was arguing with were only described as being in their 20s.

Anyone with information on the assault was asked to call LBPD Detective Ethan Shear at 562-570-7244. Anonymous tips can be called in to Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or submitted online at lacrimestoppers.org.