Cops in South Slope are passing out hundreds of “Wanted” posters and boosting patrols in an effort to nab a sex fiend who’s prowled the area since March.
On Thursday, officers in the 72nd Precinct handed out fliers along Prospect Avenue featuring a poice sketch of the brute who attacked his fifth victim last week and warned women to remain vigilant.
“We’re constantly looking for this perpetrator and we try to keep the pressure on,” said Community Affairs Officer Frank Siclari.
But some locals are slamming the precinct — which mostly covers Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park — for ignoring the small portion of South Slope under their jurisdiction.
“It’s too little, too late,” said Aaron Brashear, founding member of Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights. “The police only seem to come out when newspaper or TV stations make a fuss. If there was more of a presence overall, we would have less of these incidents.”
Bo Samajopoulos, a South Slope resident, said that his neighborhood would have to keep the pressure on even after cops nail a suspect.
“The police and our electeds need to be more responsive and accountable to all of us,” he said. “Once they have arrested one person they will go back to doing what they did for us before — nothing.”
In the latest attack, the creep grabbed a 28-year-old woman on Aug. 26 as she walked home from the Prospect Avenue subway station. She was near Sixth Avenue at 8:45 pm when he grabbed her from behind, but she kicked and screamed until he fled.
He has attacked at least four other women in South Slope, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, usually late at night.
Police describe the suspect as a thin man, about 30 years old, standing 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and black baseball cap.
The brute first attacked a 24-year-old woman on March 20 on 16th Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues.
Samajopoulos said that back then, community members offered video from a building’s security camera showing the incident, but officers ignored them — until Samajopoulos circulated the shocking footage to news media.
Siclari defended the police, saying that the precinct would add more car and foot patrols to the South Slope and Greenwood Heights.
“It’s not like if there’s no arrest that we just forget about it,” Siclari said. “We’re doing all we can.”
