CHULA VISTA, Calif. - A 45-year-old man pleaded not guilty Friday of stabbing three people in Chula Vista in the last two weeks during apparently random and unprovoked attacks.
Gerardo Bejar was ordered held on $3 million bail.
Bejar was arrested Tuesday night after a traffic stop in the 500 block of Orange Avenue in Chula Vista and booked on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, according to the Chula Vista Police Department.
The latest in the series of non-fatal assaults occurred shortly after noon Tuesday in the 300 block of K Street, police said.
The victim told investigators he was walking along the roadside when the assailant drove up in the opposite direction, pulled to an abrupt stop in the middle of the street and jumped out of his still-running vehicle, Lt. Fritz Reber said.
The suspect was wearing a black T-shirt and a dark baseball cap. He grabbed the pedestrian from behind and knifed him once in the back before getting back into the car and speeding off.
The victim described the perpetrator as a thin, roughly 6-foot-tall white man with tattoos on his neck and one of his arms.
Police believe Bejar also attacked a woman in a wheelchair in the 1600 block of Industrial Boulevard on the afternoon of Nov. 17 and jumped a man behind a Target store in the 1200 block of Broadway on the morning of Nov. 23.
The victims, each of whom suffered a single non-life-threatening stab wound to the back, told detectives they did not recognize the perpetrator.
Police said surveillance cameras captured images of the attacker's car, believed to be a 2010 to 2013-model gray or silver Ford Mustang with chrome rims and possibly a rear spoiler.
