NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Police arrested a Bronx man on Friday in connection with a string of attempted sex attacks on women at an upper Manhattan park on Wednesday morning.
Elvis Nina Pichardo, 40, was arrested Friday night and faces a long list of charges, including attempted rape, robbery, sexually motivated assault, attempted criminal sexual act, attempted sexual abuse, menacing, assault, petit larceny and public lewdness.
The public lewdness charge stems from an incident on Wednesday evening, when a man exposed himself and committed a lewd act in public view inside of a spa on Sherman Avenue, near W. 207th Street, in Inwood, according to police.
Police said they then connected him to the three attacks on women in Inwood Hill Park earlier in the day.
The three women were targeted over the course of about an hour, according to police.
A 34-year-old woman was approached by a man at 11:21 a.m. Police said the man threatened to rape the woman before striking her in the head and robbing her of an iPhone and other electronics.
Minutes later, at 11:43 a.m., a 40-year-old woman in the park was approached by a man who threatened to sexually assault her and then demanded her phone as she ran away from him, police said.
Then at 11:57 a.m., a man struck a 44-year-old woman in the head with a tree branch in the park, according to police, who said the man repeatedly slammed her head on the ground.
The man then attempted to rape the woman before robbing her of a backpack containing an iPhone and other items, police said.
The woman suffered head trauma and was taken to Harlem Hospital by EMS.
The attacks led the NYPD and the Parks Department to increase patrols in the park, and residents organized walks through the area.
Walkers and joggers from across the Inwood and Washington Heights area on Saturday walked in solidarity with the three women. The walk went through the site of one of the attacks as a way to bring healing energy to the space, participants said.
“Generally, we should not operate from a place of fear, because when we do that, we just lower our frequency and then all kinds of bad things happen,” said Annette Fernandez of the Women’s Walking Crew. “When we operate from a higher frequency and a place of love and community and respect, better outcomes occur.”
“A lady described earlier that her husband was assaulted in this park in 2009,” said Manny De Los Santos. “And by bringing this back, this sort of support march on behalf of the victim, we’re basically saying, ‘We’re not tolerating any of this crap no more.’”
Katie von Braun just moved into the neighborhood. A selling point for her was that she could walk through the park and go birdwatching.
“It was a little bit of a shock to hear that that was something that happened so soon,” von Braun said. “I was actually probably a 20-minute walk away from where many of the attacks happened about two hours before, and I was alone, and so it was scary to think that could have been me.”
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