City police say five women were raped in separate incidents over the weekend -- and they believe two of the cases are related.
Early Friday morning, police say a suspect threatened a woman in her 20's, at a bus stop along Harford Avenue in East Baltimore. She was raped in an abandoned field nearby.
Then early Saturday morning -- less than a mile away -- a woman in her 50's who'd just left a late night church service was raped. She was waiting for a bus at a stop near Colvin Street.
Antoinette Fonseca of East Baltimore lives just a block from the bus stop on Harford Avenue where police say the suspect found his first victim. And she takes an MTA bus to work every day. She'll be more careful, starting now. ‘I think I better be on guard when I come through here because I work in the evenings and I come through here so I better have my guards up,’ she said.
City police say they’re monitoring bus stops along with MTA Police, setting traffic check-points in the area, and checking on the status of the men the sex offender registry who live nearby. ‘Given the severity of this incident we have established a specialized VCID deployment which is our Violent Crime Impact Division; they're going to be working the Eastern District until we find out who this guy is,’ said Anthony Gugliemi, a spokesman for the Baltimore City Police Department. ‘We want everyone to be mindful of their surroundings, be careful when you're approaching dimly-lit areas late at night or early in the morning.’
Cierra Brown will take the advice. She catches her bus on Hillen Street, where the second attack happened. ‘I do have to take it so I just try to stick to myself at the bus stop; not speak to anybody so, just stay and try to go when it's still in the day time or whatever,’ she said.
Women like Antoinette Fonseca say they're already prepared. ‘That's what mace if for,’ she said.
Her friend Vanessa Arrington said she would go even further, to fight off an attacker. ‘I carry my knife,’ she said. ‘I carry my knife where-ever I go. And I carry a long hat-pin. Anything sharp,’ she said.
The victims were all taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. So far they have not been able to give investigators usable descriptions of their attackers.
