BROOKLYN — The NYPD is looking into the possibility that a series of recent attempted rapes in and around Park Slope may have been committed by the same man following a fourth assault last week in Prospect Heights, police said.
All four victims in the attacks are women between the ages of 21 and 34 who had been walking alone late at night. In each, police described the suspect — including in surveillance footage and a sketch — as a young man between the ages of 20 and 30.
Police said the most recent rape attempt happened at 2:40 a.m. on July 12 in Prospect Heights. Officials said a 30-year-old woman walking east on Park Place between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues was talking on her cellphone when an unknown man came up behind her, grabbed her shoulders and pushed her to the ground.
The suspect then attempted to remove the woman’s underwear, but fled on foot when her screaming attracted attention from neighbors on the residential side street, police said. The incident was first reported by the New York Daily News.
The attack came 10 days after a similar incident on Garfield Place near Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, located just eight blocks away.
In that case, a man approached a 23-year-old woman from behind as she walked down the street at 4:40 a.m., shoved her to the ground and started to pull down his pants. He ran away when the woman threw her purse at him, police said.
After that incident, police released surveillance footage of the suspect, described as between 25 and 30 years old, between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet tall, and wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants.
A third attack was caught on video on June 26 when a man approached a 34-year-old woman around 3:50 a.m. as she walked alone on 16th Street in Windsor Terrace. According to graphic video released by the NYPD, the man lifted the woman’s dress and pulled her underwear, then shoved her to the ground and punched her before running away.
The police department is investigating whether those three incidents may be related to a fourth attempted rape, also in Park Slope, of a 21-year-old woman walking alone on Second Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues around 4:30 a.m. on May 22.
Police said an unknown man pushed the woman to the ground, pulled off her underwear, attempted to rape her before fleeing in an Acura sedan after the woman fought him off and yelled for help.
In that case, the NYPD released a sketch of the suspect depicting a young man with dark, cropped hair and short facial hair.
The police department has previously said investigators had identified two “persons of interest” in the Windsor Terrace case, but no arrests have yet been made in that incident or any of the other three.
A fifth attempted rape in the area, of a 23-year-old jogger on April 20, continues to be investigated, but police said it's unlikely that attack is related to the more recent string of assaults.
Anyone with information about these incidents can call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS or in Spanish at (888) 57-PISTA (74782).
