Westside sees another attack

Deepa Bharath

A 24-year-old woman is the latest victim in a series of brazen

assaults that have plagued the city’s Westside since January, police

said on Tuesday.

The woman was attacked Friday night as she was walking east on

Victoria Street near Miner Street, Costa Mesa Police Sgt. John

FitzPatrick said.

The assailant grabbed the woman from behind, touched her

inappropriately, pushed her to the ground and got on top of her, he

said.

“But just then the victim heard a vehicle make a U-turn and drive

up in her direction,” FitzPatrick said. “The attacker got up and fled

and a man and a woman got off the car to help her.”

The woman spoke only Spanish, he said. But the passersby helped

her up after which the victim walked home and called the police,

FitzPatrick said.

The alleged attacker on Friday is said to be a man about 23 years

old, 5-foot-6, weighing about 190 pounds, wearing tan shorts and same

color shirt and baseball cap, police said.

Friday night’s incident is the fifth in a string of similar

assaults, all of which have targeted women walking alone on the

street. Three of those incidents happened in broad daylight,

officials said. All of the assaults happened on Victoria Street,

police said.

On Thursday afternoon, two men attacked a 22-year-old woman who

was pushing her child in a stroller near Victoria Street and

Placentia Avenue. The assailants pushed her to the side of the street

on some bushes and started taking off her clothes, but fled after

hearing someone approaching, police said.

Costa Mesa police are still looking for four men suspected of

grabbing and inappropriately touching three women on separate

occasions on the same stretch of Victoria Street in early January.

All three incidents happened between the 500 and 600 blocks of

Victoria Street, police said.

These are clearly “brazen acts,” Costa Mesa Police Chief John

Hensley said.

“It’s too many incidents too close together,” he said.

The Costa Mesa Police Department has increased its presence in the

problem area by putting officers on bike patrol and foot beat,

Hensley said.

“We also have our Special Enforcement Detail actively looking for

the suspects,” he said. “We can’t sit back and hope we catch these

guys. We have to be out there looking for them and that’s definitely

a top priority for us right now.”

Police are watching for the white pickup truck the attackers

reportedly drove, Hensley said. Police are also working on a

composite of the suspects, he said.

Mirna Burciaga, a Westside business owner and city planning

commissioner, said she was “shocked” to hear about the assaults.

“I’m very, very concerned,” she said. “I have daughters who want

to go out in that area to visit relatives or to a store or to get ice

cream. And I tell them ‘no’ because I know it’s not an area where

they can walk safely and freely.”

Education, especially for the Latino community in the Westside, is

very important, she said.

“The police need to open up communication with us,” she said. “The

more they inform us about what’s going on in our neighborhoods, we

can protect ourselves better.”

Anyone with information about the assaults is asked to call the

Costa Mesa Police Department at (714) 754-5281.

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.