Lawrence police detectives have identified a man who allegedly tried to grab a Lawrence girl off her bike on the Kansas River levee on Aug. 4.
Detectives made contact with the 45-year-old man on Aug. 15, but he has not been arrested.
Police said the man was naked when he tried to grab a 17-year-old girl off her bike near the Eighth Street boat ramp in North Lawrence. The girl was able to ride past the man and was not injured.
Police will forward a report to the Douglas County district attorney for possible criminal charges. The Journal-World generally does not identify suspects in sex crimes unless they are convicted.
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consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Did he have any Identification on his person? If so where did he keep his wallet? ( I don't really want to know).
consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Sorry i am going to miss all the great comments that will be posted on here tonight and tomorrow. It leaves me... Just feeling naked ;o(
jumpin_catfish (anonymous) says…
Well, comsumer1 I guess you will just have to grin and bare it.
WHY (anonymous) says…
It may be a little early to call this a sex crime. Maybe a nudist just needed a bike.
somebodynew (anonymous) says…
Wonder of the LPD did a in-person line up for ID???? Hmmm...
Alabamastreet (anonymous) says…
Great a nudist gang and a ninja gang now on the loose in Topeka.
RuralWanderer (anonymous) says…
And this is why I LOVE the LJWorld's comment section!!
WHY (anonymous) says…
I don't think this is a topekan crime. No mention of a crack pipe, and nudist sounds so much more like lawrence.
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
so,
lpd didn't take him into custody?
do they think he'll still be easy to find, one of the bums down by the river when they decide to arrest him then???
I suppose this means he wasn't one of the river bums. at least I hope lpd would put one of them into jail if it really were one of them.
***
so,
if ljworld does a running series on this, will it be an article series, or a comic strip? [multiple puns intended]
if he'd caught the bike the wrong way, it might have meant a chain reaction.
you're welcome Ruralwanderer,
we live to serve.
most of all, thank God that courageous girl got away from the perp!
misplacedcheesehead (anonymous) says…
Marion is funny!!!
Hey, don't stand too close to a naked man.
The perv is in the all-together, the all-together, the all-together...
Maybe the perv was simply rehearsing a bit part in an alternative theater production of The Emperor's New Clothes?
labmonkey (anonymous) says…
If the police can do a fingerprint...I wonder if they can do a print from another bodily digit.
jenniflip (anonymous) says…
Ha. Ha. You all are so very clever. I, however, live right around the corner from where this incident happened. I also have a 15-year-old daughter who likes to exercise on the river trails and levee. So...I guess it would have been equally as comical if the alleged perpetrator had succeeded in grabbing the girl? Or my daughter? Or you? Or me? You're right. I'm laughing my head off.
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
Jenniflip,
precisely because *nobody got hurt* is *why* we can laugh about this.
btw, I'm in that area often. you think I was making it up about 'river bums?'
if it is one of them, it isn't the first time there's been a sexual incident down in that area with them. but we have to love and accept the homeless in their alternative lifestyle choice, don't we.
Jenniflip, we're also trying to poke fun at this perv, a kind of social sanction.
hope your daughter stays safe. I've probably seen her and she's probably seen me.
BigPrune (anonymous) says…
Would this guy be needing a ride to Camp Gaea?
TheJokerObama (anonymous) says…
lmao @ Lawrence news....So funny.
woodenfleaeater (anonymous) says…
Was he wearing a fig leaf? Did he try to get the girl to take a bite of an apple? If so, it may have been the second coming of Adam.
artichokeheart (anonymous) says…
Not funny at all people.
appleaday (anonymous) says…
A 15 year old girl would probably be too terrified to do much. Or to see much humor in it. Or way too grossed out.
Pywacket (anonymous) says…
I'm a little confused by one thing. I don't recall reading that HE was on a bike, only that she was. But it looks like the cops confiscated a bike (I haven't watched the vid, but can see the frame showing a bike in the squad car). Was he on a bike when he lunged for the girl?
Glad they got the guy, anyway. Even if there's not much they can pin on him for this, at least it will provide a base, should he continue to bother girls.
blue73harley (anonymous) says…
Yes, Py, it is kind of hard to pin something on a naked dude.
OldEnuf2BYurDad (anonymous) says…
When a teenaged girl on a bike is being chased by a naked man, he's not chasing her to take her BIKE. This needs to be treated like an attempted rape, not attempted theft of a bike.
Why hasn't he been arrested?
bondmen (anonymous) says…
This is merely choice being carried to an extreme.
riverat (Joe Hyde) says…
Just speculating here, Pywacket: The naked guy might have missed grabbing the girl herself but succeeded in briefly holding the frame or the handlebars of her bicycle. If she told officers this is how it happened, then police weren't confiscating her bike; they were transporting it to headquarters to see if they could lift his fingerprints off it.
smitty (anonymous) says…
**Police will forward a report to the Douglas County district attorney for possible criminal charges.**
Why.exactly, OldEnuf. This is being treated as an annoyance call, leaving the charges and actions up to the DA not the LPD as if a slight questioning will deter a sexual offender. Aug 4th incident, made contact? on the 15th, as noted in the JW on the 21st.
Wow, is this not being treated as a rape/sexual assault attempt by the legal authorities or what? The LPD dets are playing politics with the DA's office by not arresting him and by the drawn out PR for the the LPD having made *contact*.
Olin(LPD) is up to the usual get the DA and PR spin BS. Watch for seemingly unassociated news to follow that spin the LPD positively and the DA in a negative light that will likely state a need for more funding.
esteshawk (anonymous) says…
Maybe he wasn't naked by choice, and REALLY wanted to get home fast - hence stealing the bike. Not likely, but possible.
KU_cynic (anonymous) says…
"The Journal-World generally does not identify suspects in sex crimes unless they are convicted."
It seems quite unlikely that this man will be charged with a sex crime, as he never made any contact with the girl and did not injure her. What he might have intended to do will never be known and hence's there's no crime.
But, public indecency isn't a sex crime (is it?)? So, as soon as he is NOT charged with a sex crime I hope the Journal World publishes his name, because this is just the kind of public behavior that ought to be publicly shamed.
none2 (anonymous) says…
I cannot understand some of the bias and hostility in the postings. How do you know for sure that this was a dude or that their was criminal intent?
Open your minds to the all the possibilities. Here are a couple:
1) It could have been a situation where the nudist person was violently harassed for being transgendered and was forced to strip, and was simply grabbing the first female in order to borrow some clothing. The nudist shouldn't be condemned, but rather martyred and the new transgendered protection law should be named after this nudist.
2) The nudist perhaps is actually a dude and could have been hit earlier by another rude bicyclist on the levee. He thought the girl on a bike was another bicyclist out to harm him. The nudist should get the city to inact a new nudist pedestrian protection law, and it should be named in his honor.
Lets get ALL the facts before we condemn the nudist.
backyardwino (anonymous) says…
”The man is a sex offender. With a record. Spent six months in Chino for exposing himself to an eight-year-old. When he moved down to Venice he had to go door-to-door to tell everyone he's a pederast.”
-Walter Sobchak
Boeing (anonymous) says…
Maybe he was trying to pull off "The Naked Man", as per How I Met Your Mother fame?
skinny (Richard Johnson) says…
The Journal-World generally does not identify suspects in sex crimes unless they are convicted.
Having three daughters this upsets me.
I refuse to subscribe (pay money) to read the LJWorld when they refuse to print the local news, especially this kind of stuff. Print the guys name, it is public information, and is given to you by the Police Dept. Especially if he is a sexual predator!! What is wrong with you LJWorld?
backyardwino (anonymous) says…
come on skinny . . . really?
let's say somebody's really po'd with you and they go to a payphone and call 911 and say they were walking down the sidewalk and falsely claim that you exposed yourself to them . . . and then your name was spread all over the LJW . . .
doesn't seem right does it
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
I was serious above:
why didn't LPD arrest this guy?
do they think if they want him, he'll just be at club 2-1-4 or down by the river?
this is just wrong.
got a link/picture Walter?
***
remember,
Merrill has posted repeatedly he's in favor of nude hiking.
maybe this was a nude hiker, but he got tired of ... uh ... well ... chafing.
skinny (Richard Johnson) says…
If an arrest is made or charges filed it is public information and every newspaper in the state of Kansas prints that information. For some reason the LJWorld has taken it upon themselves to only print that information depending on the status quo. All the Police Depts in this county release the information everyday to the LJWorld, they just refuse to print it unless it is to their benefit!!
backyardwino (anonymous) says…
walter sobchak . . . movie reference . . . The Big Labowski . . .
here's a link anyway. . .
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/q...
jimmyjms (anonymous) says…
I personally don't find any of this funny.
Why in the hell wasn't he arrested?
Let's see:
45 years old
Naked
Threatened a child
Again: why no arrest?
Contact was made? I hope it was with a baseball bat.
smitty (anonymous) says…
Just PR for the LPD so they can say they did their job.....NOT
mdfraz (anonymous) says…
smitty, do you even know the definintion of rape? So he's naked and tried to grab a girl and/or her bike. obviously it's an attempted rape, right? I'm not justifying what the guy allegedly did. It SEEMS pretty clear that your average joe doesn't get naked and try to grab a teenaged female if he doesn't have some bad intent. however, and this is pretty darned important, for there to be charges filed, there must be evidence of that intent, other than just, hmmmmmm seems like that's probably what he was trying to do. We can't just presume intent, and definitely not for a crime as heinous as rape. I guess maybe we should let the police and prosecutors (who might just know a few more of the details, and clearly know more about the law than most of the posters on here) do their job and try to determine if an actual crime took place.
And as for charging "sexual assault", it would be hard to do since that is not an actual crime in Kansas. Perhaps lewd and lascivious, or possibly sexual battery, depending on the facts, but if you want to throw out accusations of what crimes this guy might have committed, at least choose real ones instead of just making some up.
jimmyjms (anonymous) says…
He was nude in public (illegal) and he allegedly made threatening moves toward a child.
Arrest that guy.
really_again (anonymous) says…
Why is this 17 year old called a child and the 17 year old runaway from Vegas called a women? 17 is not a child or girl (as the ljworld has stated)!!!
yes the act is awful i sure don't want any naked man i don't know coming up to me, but really she was not a child (hum?!! most 17 year olds now now more then i do about certain things). way to pull people into the article ljworld!
OldEnuf2BYurDad (anonymous) says…
Yeah, this is not funny. If it were my daughter, I'd be going door to door looking for him. LPD needs to get this guy off the streets.
smitty (anonymous) says…
mdfraz, OK, lewd and lascivious will do. If you really want to exercise your legal muscles, explain why no arrest and release on bond for the charges that are applicable. Sp-lane that to us ignorant, uneducated, common folks out here on the forum.!
Why treat this situation as if it has merit of such low value to our community that the dets turn it over for the DA to act? It's no secrete how the LPD is always on here p...ing and moaning about the DA's office. There is politics involved between the DA and LPD that does not act in the best interest of Lawrence's citizens.
Nothing new here folks. Move on.
Pywacket (anonymous) says…
Blue~ thanks for the laugh!!! I obviously was not thinking about how to word that one! ;-)
Riverrat~ That would make sense... I just don't remember enough about the original article. Didn't think the guy was on a bike and don't remember anything about him taking hers. I thought she was able to dodge him and ride away.
No big deal... just, what with the photo and a comment or two referring to him as being on a bike, I was hoping that detail could be clarified, as a matter of curiosity. Too busy (and/or lazy) to bother looking up the original article today!
mdfraz (anonymous) says…
Well, smitty, turning it over to the prosecutor's office to decide if they want to file charges, and if so, what charges, seems to be a logical (and fairly common) practice to me. Perhaps the police weren't sure they had enough probable cause to arrest. Perhaps they know where the guy lives, so they can find him easily if/when charges are filed. I don't really see how eschewing arrest on a possibly questionable crime and turning the decision over to the DA's office makes this a "low priority" crime.
If lewd and lascivious is the ultimate charge, guess what; it's a far cry from attempted rape. L&L is a misdemeanor crime. Don't misunderstand, a guy who engages in actions such as these probably does have issues that could be problematic, and he's definitely someone the cops would want to be familiar with, but absent more evidence, spouting off about "attempted rape" charges is reactionary and irresponsible. And by the way, even if the police did arrest him for something like L&L, it's likely he wouldn't have had to post bond at all (more likely a summons/notice to appear in court), and even if he did post bond, it would likely have been a very low one for a misdemeanor crime.