On any given day, community members of the Ramona Park neighborhood in North Long Beach were sure to see 63-year-old Rosa Elena Hernandez walking by.
“She liked walking in the park a lot,” her longtime neighbor Laura Rosario Morales said in Spanish.
Morales, 72, said she would always greet Hernandez as she walked by, chatting with her on occasion. Hernandez did not have any children but lived with her husband, she said.
“She was a good person,” Morales said.
On Monday, Hernandez was beaten to death with an electric scooter while walking one of her regular routes in the area. Police have since arrested a man suspected of killing her. They say he is a 27-year-old transient from Long Beach.
Neighbors told NBC Los Angeles that Hernandez was on her way back home after visiting friends just a few blocks away when she was attacked on 64th Street near Obispo Avenue around 12:30 p.m. The attacker was regularly seen in the neighborhood, they told the news outlet.
Morales said she was shocked by the news.
While crimes like necklace-snatching are common in the neighborhood, Morales said, this incident has left her afraid to walk around the same park across the street that Hernandez visited.
Police said they’re unsure if the attack was random. They’re still trying to determine a motive. Police identified the suspected killer as Amad Rashad Redding. He’s being held in lieu of $2 million bail.
A GoFundMe account has been set up by family members to help pay for funeral expenses.
“On behalf of the Hernandez family we would like to ask for your generous contributions to help raise funds for Rosa Hernandez who tragically lost her life to an unfortunate attack that happened on May 13, 2019 in North Long Beach.” the page stated.