By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter) & Patrick Burles (@PatrickBurles on Twitter)

UPDATE: Charges laid in brutal assault

Oct 6, 2016 | 10:43 AM

LETHBRIDGE – A 20-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault, in connection with a shocking attack on a Lethbridge woman last week.

Denzel Dre Colton Bird of Lethbridge was arrested without incident Wednesday, Oct. 5 and remains in custody, pending a Judicial Interim Release hearing. He’s charged with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, and break and enter.

Police say the 25-year-old victim was walking to work when she was struck with a weapon, dragged into the alley off 6th Ave. S. and sexually assaulted the morning of Friday, Sept. 30. Lethbridge police add the victim and the accused do not know each other and that this was a random attack.

The woman was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and remains in critical condition.

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It appears the break in the case was a man who approached investigators at the scene, saying he found a man sleeping inside his garage and told him to leave. Some items stolen from the garage were found near the victim.

After releasing the information to the public, Staff Sgt. Scott Woods spoke the media about the impact the case has had on them.

“Well I think just like anybody else, we are absolutely rattled by that as a police service, as is our community,” Woods stated. “It’s something we don’t see very often, so like everybody else, we found ourselves very concerned about what happened there.

“It hits home to everybody that as this family is going through that, it could have happened to anybody. The fact that somebody is just doing what they should be allowed to do any day of the week, walking down a street and have this happen to them, like I said, it’s rattled us and I think a lot of people in our community.”

When asked about why more information about the attack wasn’t released sooner, Woods noted that it wasn’t until Wednesday, Oct. 5 that they confirmed it was random.

“We’re in the fact business and we have to be very sure of what we know before we put it out, and we certainly don’t want to alarm the community by putting out something that’s not true. So it’s a tough balance, and it’s a balancing act, the tight rope we have to walk,” Woods explained.

“It’s bittersweet for them,” Woods told the media, saying the family was happy to at least know that someone had been charged. “But still, they’ve still got a long way to go, they don’t know as far as what the recovery status looks like for this young lady yet, or if in fact if she’s going to survive this.”

Because the charges include sexual assault, the victim’s identity can no longer be published.