A woman was forced to the ground and gagged with a shirt inside Elm Creek Park Reserve early Sunday morning, and the man responsible ran off into the woods before officers could catch him. Maple Grove Police say they received a 911 call around 8:30 a.m. from a female reporting the assault, and despite a search involving five different agencies, the suspect has not been found.
According to a press release from the Maple Grove Police Department, the victim told officers she was forced to the ground by an unknown male who placed a shirt over her mouth before fleeing on foot. Police describe the suspect as a heavy-set Hispanic male in his 30s, wearing bright blue shorts and no shirt, and note he may have been carrying a gray shirt at the time of the incident.
Search Turns Up Nothing Inside the 4,900-Acre Reserve
Officers from multiple agencies conducted an extensive search of the area but did not locate the suspect, a task made harder by the sheer scale of the terrain involved. Elm Creek Park Reserve spans 4,900 acres across Maple Grove, Champlin, and Dayton, making it the largest park reserve in Hennepin County, with more than 20 miles of paved multi-use paths and 13 miles of single-track mountain bike trails winding through it, according to TrailLink. Roughly 80 percent of the reserve's land is preserved as natural wildlife habitat, offering dense cover that can complicate any ground search.
The investigation remains active, and the Maple Grove Police Department is assisted by the Three Rivers' Public Safety Department, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, the Dayton Police Department, the Champlin Police Department, and the Hennepin County Crime Lab. The park reserve itself is managed by the Three Rivers Park District, which fields its own licensed law enforcement arm to patrol more than 27,000 acres of regional parkland in coordination with municipal departments like Maple Grove's, per the district's own public safety documentation.
How to Report Information
Anyone who was in the vicinity at the time of the incident or who may have additional information is asked to contact the Maple Grove Police Department through Hennepin County Dispatch at 911 or the non-emergency number at 952-258-5321. Commander Jon Wetternach can also be reached directly at 763-494-6199 or by email at [email protected].
Police are urging park users to stay alert while the search continues. All park users are asked to stay aware of their surroundings, report suspicious activity immediately to 911, and consider walking or running with a companion when possible, and additional patrols are now present in the area as the investigation continues.
A Rare Incident in a Generally Low-Crime Suburb
The assault stands out against Maple Grove's broader crime trends. In an official crime report released in April, Maple Grove Police Chief Eric Werner stated that aggravated assaults in the city dropped 14 percent in 2025 compared to the prior year, while total Group A offenses fell 16.4 percent, with the city also reporting zero homicides for two consecutive years through 2025.
Still, Elm Creek has seen its share of law enforcement activity in recent years. In May, police responded to the reserve after a 21-year-old Otsego man allegedly fired multiple rifle and handgun rounds at paper targets inside the park, leading to his arrest on weapons-related charges and the recovery of multiple firearms at the scene, as reported by Wright County Watch MN. And in May 2023, Maple Grove police issued a shelter-in-place order during an overnight standoff on Yorktown Lane immediately adjacent to the reserve, which ended in the arrest of a 59-year-old man on domestic assault charges, according to CBS Minnesota.
Hoodline has previously covered a severe assault case against Maple Grove officers that resulted in a 39-month prison sentence, underscoring how seriously the city's prosecutors have treated violent assault charges in the past. For now, the search for Sunday's suspect continues, and police say anyone with information should come forward.
