San Diego Woman Raped in Department Store Fitting Room

A woman was raped at knifepoint in a Nordstrom fitting room by an assailant who lay in wait as shoppers thronged the store, police said Monday.

The 49-year-old San Diego woman was in a fitting room of the department store in the Fashion Valley shopping mall Sunday afternoon when she was attacked, said San Diego Police Sgt. Steve Hinton.

Investigators said the victim had been in the same fitting room minutes earlier, and had gone back to try on additional clothes.

According to police, the man threatened the woman with a knife, and bound her mouth and wrists with duct tape. The attacker also stole the woman’s jewelry and $133 in cash from her purse before fleeing, Hinton added.

Both police and Nordstrom officials said they were at a loss to explain how the man could have entered the second-floor fitting room without being seen by other shoppers or the store’s security officers.

The floor was also monitored by a surveillance camera, and officers reviewed the tape but could not spot the man, said Hinton.

“The assault took only a few minutes, and she was quite shaken up. This is the only attack of its kind that I’ve ever heard of. How many times does a rape occur inside a department store’s fitting room?” said Hinton.

On Monday, Nordstrom regional manager Elizabeth Lovelace said the store’s security and employees were in “a heightened state of awareness.” She said the store had a normal complement of security working on Sunday, but she refused to provide details about the security system.

In a written statement, Lovelace said the store was also “busy and well-staffed by our sales people” on Sunday.

“We are awaiting the findings of the police to determine specific information regarding the situation. . . . We always take the safety of our customers and employees seriously and to the best of our knowledge this is the first time a claim of this nature has been made regarding Nordstrom,” said the statement.

Hinton said the probe is continuing, and added that investigators are looking into whether the assailant could be a present or former employee familiar with the store’s security system.