Georgia college student arrested after ‘charging into high school cross country race and attacking runner with rocks before fleeing into woods’

A college student from Georgia has been charged with battery after allegedly attacking a runner during a Coweta County high school cross-country meet.Officers were called to a location near 56 Sewell Road in Newnan, Georgia just before 8am on September 26, Newnan Police Department said.They received a 911 call about an attack at a high-school cross country competition, with witnesses telling police a man came from the woods carrying rocks waring an East Coweta High School cross-country jersey.Police say the man charged at the victim, shoved him and struck him with his fists before abandoning the course and rushing back into the woods after the victim fought back to defend himself, leaving the suspect with a visible cut above his right eye. Body camera footage later showed the suspect, identified as Aiden Dombroski, surrendering to police in a nearby parking lot.Officers called an ambulance to treat the suspect at the scene before he was booked into Coweta County Jail and charged with battery. [embedded content] Aidan Dombroski was arrested and has been charged with battery after the incident The suspect was shown turning himself in to police with a visible cut above his right eyeCBS News report that an East Coweta High School cross-country jersey was found inside the man’s car when it was searched by police.The suspect, arrested and identified as a 19-year-old Newnan resident, denied punching the runner and claimed it was a joke, something the victim and witnesses dispute.In the bodycam footage, Dombroski can be heard being asked: ‘So you don’t know that kid at all?’He replies: ‘I know him. I’m not friends with him. No bad blood. Acquaintances.’Asked there was some premeditation behind the attack, Lieutenant Josh Jordan told FOX 5 News: ‘There must have been, because a person doesn’t normally wake up and decide to drive two and a half, three hours away to a high school cross-country match, put on an opposing team’s jersey and then attack a student from the words.’A spokesperson from Coweta County called it ‘bizarre’ while a spectator said it was ‘like something out of Netflix’, per the FOX 5 report.  Police say the suspect is currently enrolled at the University of Georgia and drove on Friday night from Athens, sleeping in his car before carrying out the attack on Saturday morning.He never actually attended East Coweta High School, despite the vest, but raced cross-country for Northgate High School before he graduated a year earlier.The race, the Coweta Cup, featured runners from all three Coweta County High Schools and was a major event on the local cross-country calendar.FOX 5 News reporter Doug Evans referred to it as a ‘Tonya Harding-like’ attack, drawing parallels with the infamous assault on U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan orchestrated by her rival at a competition in 1994.