A 19-year-old plumber with blond hair and blue eyes is sitting in Orange County Jail this morning after police say he used a 25-inch machete to attack a man Sunday night in the parking lot of Orange County's most internationally acclaimed shopping center: South Coast Plaza.
Robert Carl Hopkins Jr., a Costa Mesa resident who could face charges of assault with a deadly weapon and will likely remain in custody until he can post $25,000 bail, wore what authorities say was an all-black “ninja” outfit during the incident.
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The victim, who hasn't been identified and wasn't seriously injured, called 911 around 9 p.m. to report that the attack occurred near Sears and that the assailant ran toward Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant before fleeing across the street to the Regency South Coast Village movie theater.
Police recovered the machete under a row of movie seats and arrested Hopkins.
Hopkins is expected to face a judge on Tuesday.
In November 2009, a CHP officer stopped him for speeding faster than 100 mph, according to court records.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.