Helendale Resident Stabbed After Attempting to Stop Area Vandals

Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 1st, 2017

HELENDALE – A Helendale family is dealing with devastating consequences resulting from the intervention with area hoodlums who were wreaking havoc in the community on Halloween night. Beginning at around 8:12 p.m. the Victor Valley station began receiving numerous reports of 911 calls reporting that 4-5 black males were breaking windows in the area of Blue Water and Corona in Silver Lakes.

Kerri Fontenette told a Helendale Facebook group on Wednesday that her husband and her son saw the group of teens who were causing a disturbance in the community in the 26000 block of Helendale road near Bluewater road.

The pair witnessed the suspects vandalizing a neighbor’s home, then breaking into a semi-tractor trailer. After approaching the teens just before 9:00 p.m. and attempting to make a citizen’s arrest but two of the five suspects began to fight. One of the suspects, Montel Jorden Smith, 21, of Silver Lakes, swung a hammer at the victims, while other suspects assaulted the victims using wood sticks.

While the victims were holding Smith down a different unidentified suspect produced a knife and stabbed one of the victims in the back. Smith was taken into custody by responding deputies, but all other suspects fled the scene and are yet to be identified. Smith was booked into the High Desert Detention Center for attempted murder and is being held in lieu of $1,000,000 bail.

Fontenette said that her husband left with an injured hand, but her son had to be airlifted to a trauma center for treatment of serious injuries. Fontenette encourages her community to continue to stand strong against vandals and those continuing to attack their small, quiet, and tight-knit community. “Scumbags will not run us out of this great community and if we have to stand together and protect one another from these low life then that is what we will do,” said Fontenette, in a community Facebook group. Fontenette asks that the community continues to keep her family in their thoughts and prayers as her son remains in critical but stable condition. He is suffering from a punctured lung, a fractured eye socket, fractured cheek, and fractured ribs.

Anyone with information regarding this crime is urged to contact at Detective Scott Chapdelaine at Victor Valley Sheriff’s Station, (760) 552-6800. Persons wishing to remain anonymous can report information to WeTip by calling 1-800-78-CRIME, or by accessing the website at www.wetip.com.

Anyone wishing to assist him and his family as they get through this difficult time can donate to their Fundly Account set up by a family friend.

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