Search for Molester Intensifies : Crime: In wake of latest attack in the Valley, police redeploy patrols that were reduced over holiday.

The molester who has stalked and attacked mostly schoolgirls in the San Fernando Valley returned, despite massive publicity about his crimes, to claim his 26th victim and terrorize parents anew.

Police attributed the brazen attack on an 11-year-old Van Nuys girl on her way to school to the serial molester whom detectives identified a month ago as the man who has groped, fondled and raped victims across the Valley.

As a result of the attack, police have redeployed extra undercover patrols around Valley schools that had been reduced over the Thanksgiving holiday due to a “lack of manpower,” according to a detective in charge of the case. Police said hundreds of officers were on the streets Thursday.

Wednesday’s incident, in which the assailant again stalked his victim and grabbed her twice, this time as she interrupted her walk to school and returned home to retrieve a drill team whistle she had forgotten, was the first since Nov. 11, but authorities doubt that it is the last.

“If this is the same suspect that has been involved in the series, and we believe it is, there could be more attacks,” said Detective Craig Rhudy of the Los Angeles Police Department, who heads a task force investigating the crimes. “The fact that he has hit again, indicates that he will hit again. . . . The more often he hits, the more likely it’s going to be that we can catch him.”

Police said the girl noticed she was being followed by a man who fit the description of the serial molester less than two blocks from her home.

The girl returned and ran inside her house, got the whistle and went back outside, believing that the man had left, but moments later he appeared and grabbed at her arm, police said. The girl elbowed her assailant and ran a short distance, but the man chased her and grabbed her arm again.

She struggled free and ran to school, where she told a friend that she had been attacked. The girl waited until after 2:30 p.m. before telling a teacher’s aide, police said.

“She was frightened,” said Sally Shane, principal of Van Nuys Elementary School.

“She followed instructions that she has been given here at school, that is not to talk to strangers and to run away,” Shane said. “It worked this time.”

Rhudy said a composite sketch will be drawn of the girl’s assailant. The detective said that beefed-up patrols following the Nov. 3 rape of a 9-year-old schoolgirl were cut back over the Thanksgiving break.

“We didn’t start them back up after the holiday because there hadn’t been any hits since the 11th (of November),” Rhudy said. “We just didn’t have the manpower to continue those patrols.”

LAPD Valley Bureau Cmdr. John Moran said that there may have been a fluctuation in the number of officers assigned to special patrols before and after the Thanksgiving holiday. Both officers said there was never a complete withdrawal.

“They’ve always been out there,” Moran said.

As a result of Wednesday’s attack, intensified patrols resumed Thursday morning and included undercover narcotics and traffic officers, as well as auto theft and burglary detectives. The patrols supplement a task force of two dozen personnel investigating the crimes.

Rhudy said the boldness of the molester’s most recent attack illustrates his “drive.”

“If the drive is there, it tends to put him beyond the fear of getting caught,” he said.

Deputy Police Chief Martin Pomeroy, who commands the five Valley divisions, said he was not surprised to learn that the molester had struck again.

“I was apprehensive that he hit again, but it is not without some expectation that we found another report on this individual,” Pomeroy said.

Angry parents criticized police last month for not identifying a pattern in the attacks and notifying them sooner. It was during the investigation of the Nov. 3 rape that detectives spotted a pattern in the attacks, the first of which was recorded in February.

Police maintained that the best way to stop the molester was to catch him. The LAPD launched a massive undercover operation Nov. 8 to accomplish that, and went public with the investigation Nov. 15.

“Our initial tactics were correct, but our plan is always being evaluated and revised,” Pomeroy said. “In this case going public to catch the suspect was a matter of balancing the need to catch the suspect with the need to alert the public for their safety.”

LAPD Chief Willie Williams ordered a press conference Wednesday night to alert the public as quickly as possible about the attack in Van Nuys, Rhudy said.

Two men were taken into custody Thursday morning for questioning, but Rhudy said it was doubtful that either man was the suspected molester. One of the men picked up by police was a registered sex offender on his way back to jail for possession of marijuana and parole violation. The other man was later booked on narcotics charges.

“They were brought in because they fit the composite and were near a school,” Rhudy said.

Assistant Supt. Sara A. Coughlin, who oversees the Valley’s elementary schools, said her office faxed notices to schools Thursday alerting them of the attack and instructing principals to alert parents as well.

“It always takes me by surprise that there’s some individual out there preying on children,” Coughlin said. “We can’t let down our guard ever, that’s the big lesson here for all of us.”

Coughlin said that as a result of the molester case, Los Angeles Unified School District officials in the Valley will begin holding weekly meetings with school police to review crime incidents at Valley schools. The first meeting is scheduled for today.

Coughlin’s office has been faxing notices to Valley schools whenever she receives reports of children being attacked or approached near schools. Over the last two weeks schools have been alerted to a burgundy car spotted near Columbus Junior High School and Canoga Park and Bassett Street elementary schools in Van Nuys.

The car’s occupants have “called to the children to come near the car,” Coughlin said.

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Times staff writer Chip Johnson contributed to this story.

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