Fears of Assaults Subside

Life continues normally along Victoria Street, even in the face of warnings from Costa Mesa police that a band of attackers is accosting women. Children walk to school, women push babies in strollers, and teenagers wait for the bus.

“I was hesitant to come to this park for a while,” said Corrie Honer, 28, as she played late last week with her three small children and a fourth she was taking care of at Ketchum-Libolt Park, at Victoria and Maple streets.

The children romped about the tiny playground not far from where a Spanish-language police flier about the attacks was taped to a lamppost.

The flier listed six suspects in the eight attacks on women that began in December in this predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood.

Police Lt. John FitzPatrick said the attacks took place in the middle of the day, usually between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. All of the victims were Latinas between 20 and 30.

FitzPatrick said victims most often were grabbed from behind, their breasts and genitals groped. The latest attack occurred the morning of April 9. A man knocked a young woman to the ground, straddled her and pulled off her top. A passerby scared the man away.

None of the victims was raped, FitzPatrick said, and none of the women was seriously hurt. Police say that based on victim descriptions, the attackers are Latinos between 18 and 26. FitzPatrick said it is not known if the attacks are gang-related.

Police have gone door to door with their warning fliers and have urged women to walk in pairs and be especially mindful of their surroundings.

“Our purpose wasn’t to go out and scare them, but to inform them about what was going on so they could protect themselves,” Lt. Dale Birney said.

Honer is among those who actively follow police advice. She used to run alone each morning but stopped after police notified residents of the attacks.

She also used to walk to the park, pulling the kids in a wagon. Now she drives them there and always watches who walks in and out of the gate.

Janie Andrich, principal of nearby Christ Lutheran School, said very few of her students walk home, but after the attacks she started to watch them arrive and leave each day. She said that most parents drive their children to and from school.

But Andrich had acknowledged that even she hadn’t been standing watch for the last week.

Although the last attack was nearly two weeks ago and women walk freely, it is still important to catch the attackers, FitzPatrick said.

“We try to catch them before it escalates into something else,” he said.