Issaquah Teen Attacked In New Skateboard Park

ISSAQUAH

Tucked in a ravine behind the Community Center on the south side of Issaquah is the city's new skateboard park, with thousands of square feet of just-poured concrete waiting to dry.

That might be a tempting target for anyone longing to draw their initials in the concrete, or do any other kind of vandalism.

To prevent that, dozens of area teens volunteered to watch over the new park, spending nights in tents and their days making sure a sprinkler system was running right to keep the concrete wet and allow it to cure properly.

Now, one of the teens guarding the new concrete says he was attacked as he slept in a tent early Saturday. Who might have attacked him and why remain a mystery.

"I woke up with blood all over my head, and I said, `What the heck is this?' " Moises Juarez, 15, said today.

Known as "Moses," by his friends, Juarez now is feeling better and was able to go to a summer job in Kent, where he showed the cut on his temple just above his right eye.

"What I think is, I got stabbed with a painter stick," that had been sharpened, said Juarez.

The youth's ordeal began about 8 Friday night when he and two friends went to the park for guard duty.

The night went without incident, although at one point the three friends walked down to a 24-hour service station a few blocks away and noticed a white car with tinted windows that circled them about four times.

They didn't think anything of it at the time, said Juarez, and even now he doesn't know if that's important.

The youths put up a light-blue camping tent on a small bluff on the east side of the park around midnight and then stayed up talking until about 3:30 a.m.

It was about 5 a.m. when Juarez woke up and discovered the blood. One of his friends used a phone at the community center to call his mother, and she took the injured youth to the Issaquah Police Department, where officers called Juarez's mother. He was treated at Overlake Hospital Medical Center and released.

Officer Tom Griffith reported that he talked to Juarez and his friends at 5:18 a.m. Saturday.

"He (Juarez) said he woke and his head hurt and he found out he was bleeding and realized he had been hit by something. He does not remember anything about being struck," reported Griffith.

Juarez said today it seemed unlikely the injury was an accident or that someone may have thrown something from the street. He said he and his friends checked the area around the tent when they went to bed to avoid having to sleep on rocks and didn't notice anything unusual near the tent then.

When police went back to the site Saturday morning, they found a pointed piece of wood on the ground near the tent. Police photographs show a tear in the side of the tent and a rock a few inches in diameter resting on the edge of the tent.