ATLANTA — A police report details a violent assault that happened in the early morning and began in the middle of a Buckhead sidewalk.
The Atlanta Police Department is searching for the suspect in the sexual assault, which occurred March 30 on Piedmont Road, a short ways north of East Paces Ferry Road.
They do not have an identification on the individual, who was described by the victim as a Black man in his 20s, standings 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10.
According to the report, the attack began around 7 a.m. The woman told police she left work at 6:50 a.m. and was walking north on Piedmont when she saw the man cross over to her side at the intersection with East Paces Ferry.
She said she was "walking and then felt something choking her from behind." She began to fight him off, but was dragged into a parking lot where he began "punching her in the face and at some point, chipped her bottom tooth."
The victim said he "kept trying to push her further back away from the road as cars were driving past" and that he "kept telling her to stop resisting him or he will have to kill her."
The report outlines at least two more instances, in which he told her to stop fighting back or he would kill her.
He eventually put her in a chokehold and got her to the ground, initiating the sexual assault, but she "fought back to her feet" and "begged and pleaded with the suspect" to let her go.
At that point he did, warning her: "if she does go to the police he knows people and that they will find her."
The victim later suggested to police the attack was calculated, saying the suspect "seemed to be in the right state of mind."
Surveillance videos in the area showed him at the intersection of East Paces Ferry and Maple Drive walking east toward Piedmont at 6:58 a.m., but that either there were no cameras at the businesses in the immediate vicinity of the attack or, if there were, they did not capture any of it occurring.
11Alive spoke with people walking in the area. Some expressed concern a crime like this could happen on a busy street when so many people would be around.
"Especially in this area. Like with all this amount of money being out here, Right? It's something I never think that would go on," Buckhead resident Toppell Hamilton said.
Hamilton said he believes there should be a heavier police presence late at night and in the early hours of the morning to prevent more incidents like this one.