Latest Westside Rape Raises New Concerns

WEST LOS ANGELES —  Another woman has been sexually assaulted in West Los Angeles, prompting police to wonder Tuesday whether the so-called Westside rapist is to blame.

Police said a 25-year-old woman was attacked by a man who crept through an unlocked door in her apartment in the Palms district attack. The incident, which occurred late Monday, came 10 days after the rape of a woman on the same block that police blamed on the Westside rapist.

The suspect is believed to have committed six other sexual assaults, some of them rapes, in West Los Angeles since December, said Officer Charlotte Broughton, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Broughton said Monday’s attack, which occurred about 10:15 p.m. in the 3500 block of Jasmine Avenue, was “very similar to recent attacks in the manner that [the rapist] has entered and sexually assaulted the females.”

The victim in Monday’s attack told police that the man was unarmed, Broughton said. The attacker was described as an African American with short dark hair, 5-feet-8, 160 pounds and in his early 20s. He was cleanshaven and wore a black sweatshirt and black warm-up pants, police said.

On Friday, Inglewood police shot and killed a man after he raped a woman in that city. They suggested that the man, who allegedly threatened them with a knife, might have been the Westside rapist, but Monday’s incident appeared to undercut that theory.