Jogger sexually assaulted at gunpoint, assailant at large

BY ALLISON LEVITSKY
Daily Post Staff Writer

A teenage jogger was pulled off a Palo Alto bike trail and sexually assaulted at gunpoint this afternoon (March 28), according to police.

The girl was jogging west on the path that runs along the north side of Arastradero Road, near Tesla’s headquarters at Stanford Research Park.

Near the intersection with Deer Creek Road, a man in his 30s emerged from the bushes, pulled her off the path into a greenbelt area with tall grass, held a handgun to her head and sexually assaulted her around 1:47 p.m.

Police Capt. Zach Perron declined to say whether the girl had been raped, but said that if she had, police would use DNA evidence collected with a rape kit in their search for her attacker. He didn’t know how far off the path the girl was pulled.

“Something like this is extremely unusual,” Perron said. “This does not happen frequently here at all.”

A passerby called 911 after the girl called out for help. Paramedics from the Palo Alto Fire Department took her to a hospital for treatment, where Perron said she is in stable physical condition and is expected to make a full physical recovery.

Perron identified the girl as high-school age, but didn’t specify her age or say where she goes to school.

The path she was on extends to Gunn High School, which is about a mile from where she was assaulted.

Police searched the area for more than two hours before calling off the search around 4:26 p.m.

Deputies form the Stanford Department of Public Safety, officers and a police dog from the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety and a helicopter crew from the California Highway Patrol helped with the search.

Police closed off driveways to nearby offices and warned companies to keep employees out of the area during the search.

Perron said police didn’t know if the girl’s attacker may have parked a vehicle nearby in order to flee. The gun was never found.

The girl described her assailant as possibly being Filipino, standing about 5 foot 10 inches tall and wearing a black sweatshirt with a bear logo and a red and white border.

Perron said the sweatshirt could have featured a California state flag, not necessarily a University of California bear.

He was also wearing baggy gray pants and black sneakers, police said.

The girl didn’t describe the handgun further, police said.

Detectives are looking for leads on sightings of anyone lurking in the bushes in the area and will be reviewing any surveillance video that was captured.

Perron said the department would be stepping up patrols in the area in the meantime.

8 Comments

  1. It would be helpful if the police put out a sketch of this creep! It may be that the victim was traumatized by this ordeal, so it might be difficult. But I urge the police to try and get a sketch. Thank you.

  2. WE have to come together as a community. Both men and women
    Fathers of young daughters
    Mothers of sons
    All of us
    See how Pornography and the Promiscuity encouraged
    Online is destroying our safety net. Our sacred values and our very family lives

  3. WE have to come together as a community. Both men and women
    Fathers of young daughters
    Mothers of sons
    All of us
    See how Pornography and the Promiscuity encouraged
    Online is destroying our safety net. Our sacred values and our very family lives

  4. As an elder in the community
    As a woman and survivor.
    I see the online pornographic instantaneous gratification
    With woman posting the most obviously rude and raw expressions of their sacred bodys for everyone to see.
    This fast food approach to life combined with Pornographic online accessibility is destroying the bottom line fabric of the safety we call our very lives
    We are bombarded by sex everywhere online
    In fifty years of women asking and begging and demanding that Rape end
    Nothing has changed.
    We need to stop the over SEXUAL approach to revealing what is meant to be SACRED
    and make much harsher penalties for criminals
    Destroying our Children

  5. WE need our Men to step up.
    All of you. All cultures and religions, with your male bonding ability to give strength and man power to save the women in our comnunitues.
    We need YOU. We need your help. What if it was your daughter, or sister, or lover, or wife???????
    It is time that you gather together with strong women and End this tragedy, this barbaric behaviour that shows men are STILL in the dark ages,
    One day humanity will drop their heads in guilt and shock at how men treat WOMEN
    The same joyful soft beauty that you love is also the very same person you destroy
    Ask yourself why
    And then we can end this tragedy

  6. Final comments from Kate on this topic of sexual brutality against our children. That now includes Boys.
    I have been studying this issue of Sexual Assault now for a long time.
    Now young males are also being abused.
    We need to come together NOW and use this crisis in our communities to get strong and attack this issue head on and root it out of our Society until we End This monstrously barbaric behaviour once and for all time. We can and we will.
    As a teacher, and mother and survivor I will be leading groups in the communities for men to start dialogue with each other.
    Your daughter or son may be the next victim.
    Or your wife or lover or even you!!
    I am a creative artist and write essays on community issues.
    I have worked with Stanford Professors, Top artists around the country
    And I have my own Volunteer Service that assists the disabled,
    Some rape victims
    I will be leaving my contact information.
    The time is NOW
    To end this crisis.
    We will not end it by continuing to consent to Pornography and allowing the internet to be overly inundated by perverted promiscuity.
    I will be back
    PLEASE come to my groups for family and our men.
    We need your help.
    Thanks

  7. This is a difficult subject to discuss,in community, society,and globally.
    It is not just girls, it is boys and it is all of us
    This culture is abusive.
    Child abuse, elder abuse, animal abuse, and domestic violence.
    The abuse of all of us and the planet.
    All of these types of abuse interrelate and intertwine.
    We need to address this subject of sexual abuse from the bottom up.
    Who is doing it.
    How do we stop it.
    How do we increase punishment that is more severe.
    Lets all of us tackle this painful subject that we all ignore.
    We need courage and focus.

Comments are closed.