Investigators say three unprovoked assaults across East and South San Jose over two weeks led to an arrest after a separate barricade and machete incident.
SAN JOSE, CA — San Jose police say they have arrested a 32-year-old city resident accused of a string of sudden attacks on strangers, including two elderly men, after a separate domestic dispute on Sunday ended with officers persuading him to surrender from a home.
Authorities identified the suspect as Davit Martinez and said detectives linked him to three assaults reported between Feb. 23 and March 9. Police said the cases drew attention because the attacks appeared random, happened in public places and left two men unconscious and another injured badly enough to need stitches. Martinez was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and investigators said they are still trying to learn whether other victims were attacked in similar ways.
The first reported assault happened Feb. 23 at about 2:20 p.m. at a gym in the 2300 block of McKee Road. Police said an elderly man was exercising when Martinez approached him without warning, punched him in the face, pulled him to the ground and kept hitting him until he lost consciousness. The man was taken to a hospital. The second attack, according to police, came March 8 at about 6:50 p.m. in a supermarket parking lot in the same block of McKee Road. Officers said another elderly man was walking through the lot when Martinez punched him, knocked him down and kept striking him as he lay on the ground. Witnesses told police the attacker then fled. The victim was treated at a hospital for injuries that required stitches.
Police said the third assault was reported the next day, March 9, at 11:31 a.m. at a medical facility in the 1900 block of Monterey Road. Investigators said Martinez was a patient there when he punched an adult man in the head, causing him to fall backward and lose consciousness, then ran from the scene. The department’s Assaults Unit reviewed the three cases and decided they involved the same suspect. Detectives then secured an arrest warrant and began searching for Martinez. San Jose police have not announced a motive, and the public release did not say whether investigators believe the older victims were chosen because of their age or whether they were simply the people in Martinez’s path. The department also has not publicly described any prior contact between the suspect and the victims, and police have said the attacks were unprovoked.
The case matters in San Jose because the assaults happened in ordinary places that residents use every day: a gym, a grocery store parking lot and a medical facility. The first two reported victims were elderly men, and police said the force of the attacks was enough to leave one man unconscious on the gym floor and another bloodied in a parking lot. In the third case, officers said the victim also lost consciousness after being struck. Those details pushed the investigation beyond a routine battery inquiry and into a broader search for a suspect police described as responsible for a pattern of violent assaults. Senior public information officer Stacie Shih said, “Considering the pattern of these unprovoked violent attacks, our detectives believe there may be additional victims.” That statement underscored a central question that remains unresolved: whether the three cases publicly described are the full scope of the alleged violence or only the incidents that had already come to police attention.
Police said the search ended April 12 at about 12:55 p.m. after officers were called to a residence in the 600 block of Gittle Court. There, authorities said, Martinez was involved in a dispute with a family member, assaulted that relative and brandished a machete. Officers said he barricaded himself inside the home, prompting a response from Special Operations personnel. The standoff did not end in a forced entry, according to the police account. Instead, officers persuaded Martinez to come out, and he was taken into custody. By that point, detectives had already obtained a warrant tied to the earlier assaults, police said. The Sunday confrontation became the moment when investigators were finally able to arrest him. The police release did not identify the family member, describe any injuries from the Gittle Court dispute or say whether additional charges from that incident had been filed beyond the assault counts listed in the booking announcement.
The public record released Tuesday leaves several important points unanswered, but it also lays out a clear sequence for what comes next. Martinez was booked into county jail on multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon, police said, a charge that in California can be used in cases where force likely to produce great bodily injury is alleged even when the weapon is not a traditional object such as a knife or gun. The department did not release formal court filing numbers, and charging decisions now rest with prosecutors. Investigators also said they continue to look for other possible victims and witnesses as they build the case. That means the allegations could expand if more people come forward and if detectives connect additional incidents to the same suspect. Police have directed anyone with information to Detective Soria of the Assaults Unit, signaling that the investigation remains active even after the arrest.
The picture that emerges from the police timeline is of violence erupting in broad daylight and early evening in places where people usually expect routine, not danger. At the McKee Road gym, officers said, an older man was simply working out. In the supermarket lot, another elderly man was walking to or from his car. At the Monterey Road facility, police said, a patient suddenly struck another man hard enough to knock him unconscious. Those details help explain why the case quickly drew wider notice around San Jose. The alleged attacks were not tied to a robbery, a traffic dispute or an argument that police have described publicly. They appeared, instead, to come out of nowhere. That is also why detectives believe there may be more people who did not report what happened at the time, perhaps because the assault was brief, the suspect fled quickly or the victim did not immediately know who attacked him.
For now, the case stands at the arrest stage. Police have identified Martinez, described three assaults they say they connected to him and said he is in custody at the Santa Clara County Main Jail. The next milestone will be the filing and scheduling of any court proceedings as detectives continue reviewing whether more victims can be identified.
Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.