A man remained in critical condition after an early-morning assault in Redding on Friday, November 13, and a 48-year-old Redding man who was on parole for attempted murder has been arrested on a new attempted-murder charge in connection with the attack, the Redding Police Department said in a media release.

Source: North State Now

Officers responded at around 4:56 a.m. to the area of South Market Street and Spruce Street in Redding, the Shasta County seat in far Northern California, and found an unconscious adult man with severe head injuries. He was taken to a local hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery for multiple life-threatening injuries, sources cited in the reporting said. His name has not been released.

A suspect detained nearby

While searching the surrounding area, officers detained Eric Seward, 48, of Redding, after observing what sources described as suspicious behaviour. Detectives took over the investigation and identified Seward as the suspect through witness statements, physical evidence and follow-up work, according to the police account reported by North State Now.

On parole for attempted murder

Sources said Seward was on active California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation parole for attempted murder at the time of the incident. A parole agent authorized a parole hold, and Seward was booked into the Shasta County Jail on an attempted-murder charge together with the parole hold.

The attempted-murder charge is an allegation. Seward has not been convicted in this case, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. Police have not released a motive, a weapon, or details of what led up to the assault near the South Market Street corridor, a main commercial route through the city on the Interstate 5 corridor between Sacramento and Oregon.

What happens next

The victim's condition — critical after emergency surgery — and the parole hold are the two facts that will drive the case from here. A parole hold can keep Seward in the Shasta County Jail while the new charge moves toward a first court appearance and while state parole authorities decide separately whether his parole will be revoked over the alleged attack. Redding police have said only that the investigation remains ongoing, and no court date has been announced in the information released so far.

For readers in the North State and along the I-5 trucking corridor that runs through Redding, the case lands on a familiar pressure point: a violent pre-dawn assault on a main street, a victim fighting for his life, and a suspect who, according to the sources cited, was already under state supervision for the same kind of crime he is now accused of committing again. Every part of that account beyond the police release itself remains to be tested in court.