Stabbing suspect reportedly has history of hostility towards women

The assailant who allegedly assaulted and repeatedly stabbed 24-year-old Austin Community College student Rita Pena near ACC's Rio Grande campus on Oct. 25 was described by acquaintances as a quiet loner who was prone to aggressive and hostile behavior, especially towards women.

Reginald E. Cooper, 23, the alleged assailant, was an ACC student who attended classes at the Gary Job Corps center in San Marcos and ACC's Eastview campus. He was seen at Rio Grande campus shortly after the attack. "[He was] very calm, I didn't see anything wrong with him at all," said a student friend who asked to remain anonymous.

"He used my cell phone the night of the attack, afterwards, to try and find his phone," the student said.

Cooper dropped his cell phone in Pena's car during the attack, according to ACC police. Austin Police Department investigators used the phone to locate and apprehend the assailant.

"He was real quiet, and was always on the cell phone with women," said the friend, who lived near Cooper at the Gary Job Corps center last semester. "And he wasn't very nice to the women he was talking to."

"A lot of the time it was...stuff that you wouldn't really, I wouldn't say to a woman," the acquaintance said. "[He was] quite aggressive and hostile."

"When he came into the room he didn't talk much. You could ask him a question, he'd answer it, but other than that he really didn't try to talk at all," said the acquaintance. "He spent most of his time watching CSI in the main lobby [at Gary Job Corps] or talking on the phone with women."

The acquaintance claimed that Cooper had run into trouble before while attending classes at Gary Job Corps, including being caught in possession of a knife, a violation of the Job Corps' zero-tolerance policy towards weapons.

"He was moved out of the honors dorms because he stole the RA's cell phone and I believe there was a pending case where he had a knife on campus," said the student. "He told me about the knife. It was after the fact that he told me about that. I was wondering why he was in trouble with [security]."

A spokesman for Gary Job Corps could not confirm whether Cooper had been caught with a knife on campus.

The attack comes as a shock to the Rio Grande student community, whose downtown campus is one of the safest in the community college system, according to Austin Community College Police Department reports.

Cooper was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. According to ACC police records, this is the first such assault on campus since a 2002 attack at Northridge.

The attack occurred around 8:30 p.m. at the corner of 10th Street and West Avenue, two blocks from the Rio Grande campus. Pena was stabbed multiple times and in the neck, according to police. She was last known to be in serious but stable condition at Brackenridge Hospital.