Cops: Be on lookout for S. Phila groper
Police were alerting women yesterday to be on the lookout for a youth in his mid to late teens who has been prowling subway stairwells in South Philadelphia, groping women then fleeing.
Police from the Special Victims Unit believe the same youth has committed four afternoon cases of indecent assault since late April.
No one has been injured, police said, though one victim was knocked to the ground.
"SEPTA Police detectives are working very closely with the Philadelphia Police Department and the Special Victims Unit in the search for the suspect," a SEPTA spokesman said.
The suspected assailant was caught on surveillance cameras, police said. They described him as a black male with a thick build, 6 feet tall and of medium to dark complexion.
In all the assaults, the youth fled up the subway stairs to the street afterward.
The first occurred at 4 p.m. April 25, when a woman reported being groped from behind in the stairwell concourse of the Tasker-Morris subway station.
A similar incident occurred May 26 at 12:30 p.m. at the same station, where an assailant allegedly tried to put his hand inside another woman's pants, police said.
Two more similar incidents occurred June 25 at the Ellsworth-Federal station and Wednesday in the Tasker Street subway stairwell. *
- Gloria Campisi
