Regional Roundup: Girl Escapes Abduction, Man Assaulted With Shovel, and Man Robbed and Beaten in his Home

– Stone Mountain-Redan Patch

After a second attempted child abduction in less than two weeks, DeKalb County police are telling residents along the North Hairston Road corridor in unincorporated Stone Mountain to stay vigilant.

Sunday's alleged incident occurred at the Stonebridge Complex, according to a release from DeKalb police public information officer Mekka Parish.

Police say a nine-year-old victim was walking to her apartment at the complex when the suspect confronted her in the breezeway. 

Police say the suspect dragged the victim to a nearby wooded area. The girl escaped unharmed by screaming and kicking, police say.

The first incident occurred on February 21 at about 7:30 a.m. Police say the female victim, 11, was walking to school from the Stonebridge apartments with friends when they saw the suspect following them. Police say the suspect later grabbed the victim and tried to cover her mouth; after the victim and her friends screamed and fought him off, the suspect fled the scene.

– Cartersville Patch

A man who sustained a head injury at the hands of a friend with the shovel told police he didn't want to bring criminal charges.

 deputies were called to a Bishop Drive about 8 p.m. Sunday home as the 46-year-old victim headed to  for treatment. At the hospital, the injured man told deputies the he and a friend exchanged "a few words" in an argument, then his friend hit him in the back of the head with the shovel.

Citing their friendship and level of intoxication during what deputies called an aggravated assault, the victim declined to press charges.

-- Norcross Patch

A Norcross man was allegedly beaten and robbed of $2,500 in his own apartment last week.

According to the Gwinnett County Police report, a police officer was doing a routine check around at 3 a.m. Feb. 27 man came running through the parking lot with blood all over him.

The man, 36, told the officer how he had been drinking alone in his apartment at Steeplechase when two men came knocking on the door around 1:45 a.m. that Friday.

He didn't recognize them, he told police, but he opened the door. They pushed their way through the apartment, knocked him down.

While down, the victim said he was struck in the face many times and he was punched and kicked. One of the suspects eventually took the victim's wallet in his pants, which held $2,500 in cash.