Westside Neighbors Fight Fear of Rapist

In the Westside neighborhood of Palms, fear lingers like smoke after a fire.

The so-called Westside Rapist is believed to have struck in the area twice in 10 days, attacking two women who live on the same block. Seven women have been assaulted since December, with the suspect usually slipping into their apartments through an unlocked door or window.

The horror of the crimes has reached one nearby apartment building--home to a woman who was attacked years ago and relives the memory after each reported assault, and to a kindhearted neighbor who is now viewed with suspicion simply because he is black.

The fear is changing the neighborhood and its people, binding neighbors together or forcing them into isolation.

Thursday morning, Los Angeles Police Officer Derek Brown was on Jasmine Avenue, talking to residents about locking their doors and windows, reflecting how life has changed.

“You don’t see many people walking by themselves anymore, especially women,” he said. “People are concerned. They bring it up.”

Everybody here knows what the man looks like. He has been described as an African American, 20 to 30 years old, with short, dark hair. Composite drawings are hung in the windows of local stores.

Jena Raisrohani is one neighbor who is trying to resist the fear that once paralyzed her.

“All these things bring back the memory; maybe that’s why the impact on me is more devastating,” said Raisrohani, sitting in the Palms apartment where she has lived for seven years. It is walking distance from the sites of the two recent attacks on Jasmine Avenue.

“I’m trying not to go out, not to be alone,” she said. “It’s horrible, very terrifying and sad. This is my home.”

She is a warm woman, the mother of two adult sons who are angry over this interruption of her life. One son, Babak Naficy, lives near Adams Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, but since the last reported attack Monday, he has been spending the night at her apartment.

Her other son, Siamak Naficy, calls and visits often. Both were with her Thursday.

“It reminds me of the days of Richard Ramirez,” said Siamak Naficy, a teaching assistant at UCLA, referring to the so-called Night Stalker who terrorized Los Angeles in 1985. “Everybody [was] talking about it. Every kid I knew was sleeping with a knife beneath his bed.”

Now, Raisrohani is careful to lock all her doors and windows. The blinds in the living room have been changed to make it more difficult to see inside.

Like others along this stretch apartments and single-family homes, she and her neighbors have promised to look out for each other, even more than before.

But she cannot stop the memories the assaults have brought back.

When Raisrohani lived in the San Fernando Valley years ago, a man entered her window and climbed into her bed. Though she was not sexually assaulted, the incident was devastating. More recently, she was attacked by a man with a knife in the parking lot of the Westside Pavilion. She escaped with scars on her neck, and a fear of anyone who looked like her attacker--a black man, who later was arrested in a series of rapes.

In time, she managed to overcome those fears.

Now, the one who looks out for her when she arrives home late is an African American neighbor.

“He’s a wonderful person, a gentleman,” she said. “He told me, ‘Whenever you feel anything you’re afraid of, you bump the floor and I’ll be right there.’ ”

The neighbor, Tony Miller, lives in the apartment below Raisrohani. The former San Diego Chargers football player is 29, a single father of a 4-year-old girl. He has no fear of the rapist, but the assaults in his neighborhood have affected him too.

“I’m concerned for my neighbors,” he said. “It’s so close to home.”

When they come home late, or need help carrying groceries, he helps. It is the way he was raised, he said.

He, too, knows what the suspect looks like. He even thinks he might have seen the man in the neighborhood. The man looks nothing like Miller, but both are African American and, apparently for some, that is enough to cause suspicion.

“I have noticed that people look at me funny,” Miller said. “When I’m driving to the store I see people looking at me. I know it’s not me. They’re going to think what they’re going to think anyway. I take it with a grain of salt.”

In this racially mixed neighborhood, Brown said, many African Americans he knows are nervous about going out at night, for fear of being mistaken for the attacker.

The Los Angeles City Council has offered a reward for information leading to a conviction. Police say they are following tips from callers.

“Actually, one day I thought I might have seen somebody who might have been the guy and I called the police,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes Palms. “I hope others are doing the same. . . . Each time he strikes there’s a surge in calls from people expressing concerns.”

Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at the Santa Monica/UCLA Medical Center, has seen an increase in fear among women. The truth, she said, is that rape is committed every day in the city.

But, she said, “the positive side of publicizing the information is that people will take precautions.”

Raisrohani said she is concerned about more than just locks and other safety precautions. She does not want fear to again consume her life and cloud her relationships.

“I love people. I care for people. I respect people,” she said. “I don’t want to lose that feeling.”