The facility has filed the required incident report on the matter with the state Health Department, which regulates the health care center within Goodwin House, according to Connie Kane, the long-term care director for the state's Center for Quality Health Care Services and Consumer Protection. The state will probably do a follow-up investigation based on the report.
Mallon said the facility routinely does criminal background checks, drug tests and reference checks on prospective employees. Two former employers gave positive references for Mohamed, Mallon said, and the criminal background check found no prior criminal convictions locally.
Police lead suspect Mustafa Mohamed away from Goodwin House, where the attacks occurred.
(Andrea Bruce Woodall -- The Washington Post)
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Betty Lantz, 89, said she and other residents were concerned for the victims but not worried about their continued safety, believing that the attack was a random "one in a million thing."
"Everybody said he was a nice fellow, very pleasant. . . . He just snapped."
A former co-worker said yesterday that he had been involved in a different violent altercation with Mohamed in October 2003, while both were working at a CVS in Alexandria.
Omar Abikar, 22, who was then a shift manager, said he tried to befriend Mohamed when he came to work as a stock boy that year, because both were Somali immigrants and new to the United States. Mohamed professed a desire to work up to manager, Abikar said.
"I was trying to do him a favor and help him," Abikar said. "When I first came to this country I had a mentor. I wanted to be his mentor."
One evening while a group of CVS employees were eating some cheese pizza in the break room, Mohamed came through the door and tripped on a stack of boxes. His co-workers laughed at him, Abikar said, and he became enraged.
"He looked at me and said in our language, 'Why are you laughing?' I said, 'I'm laughing like everybody else,' " Abikar recalled. Mohamed then began pummeling Abikar on the back and punched him twice in the face, Abikar told police. Abikar fled, and two other co-workers had to restrain Mohamed until police arrived.
But after Mohamed was charged with assault, Abikar told prosecutors he did not want to testify against him at a trial because other members of the Somali community begged him not to go forward, Abikar said. The case was dropped.
John Springer said yesterday that he felt lucky to be alive, after doctors at Inova Alexandria Hospital sewed up the four deep gashes in his face with 48 stitches.
The woman Springer tried to help, Jeanne Hobbs, 37, head of food services at Goodwin House, was resting at home in Arlington last night, with about 60 stitches on her face. Her husband, Geoffrey, said that she was interested in meeting Springer.
"He may have saved her life," Geoffrey Hobbs said.
Staff writer Stephanie McCrummen contributed to this report.
