Authorities from several police agencies on both sides of the Ohio River will meet Monday to discuss a series of bizarre assaults in which a well-dressed, athletic man has sprayed some type of fluid on women's clothing.

        Six more women were accosted between noon and 2 p.m. Friday in downtown Cincinnati, adding to about a dozen previous reports during the last several months, police said. None of the women has been physically injured.

Spraying suspect

        Friday's incidents took place on the sidewalks on Sycamore, Seventh and Court streets and outside Procter & Gamble headquarters. All the victims were described as between 25 and 35 years old, well-dressed and attractive. Two of them work for P&G.

        Witnesses told police Friday they saw the man spitting into his hands, then flinging it on the women. Police were reviewing surveillance tapes from nearby stores to see if the man was caught in action.

        On Monday, officers will share information about the cases, exchange ideas and possibly develop some strategies to solve them, Cincinnati Police Detective Paul Renadette said.

        “The similarities are that the women's clothing is marked with some type of fluid,” Detective Renadette said. “They don't see, feel or hear anything when this happens to them. The suspect doesn't touch them.”

        He said he is looking into whether the assaults could be classified as hate crimes, since the victims are all white and the man is black. Since the recent cases have come to light, he said he has had calls from women who reported similar incidents as long ago as five years.

        There have now been 10 recent instances in Cincinnati, and several more in Northern Kentucky and Hamilton County, police said. The reports date to April.

        Norwood police are also investigating a case where a man with a similar physical description threw fluid in a woman's face.

        In some cases, the women told police they were in a store when someone threw or sprayed fluid on them, police reports show. In one case, a woman was in a drugstore when she felt something wet on the back of her clothes.

        “Two of my four cases were indoors,” Detective Renadette said. “In the cases of the department stores, the women do seem to have a feeling that somebody was watching them or looking at them.”

        Victims have told police the man who sprayed them is black, in his early 30s, well-dressed, about 6-foot-2 with an athletic build. On Friday, victims reported he was wearing a white ballcap, white T-shirt, green pants that appeared to be denim, and white shoes.

        While some victims told police they believe the liquid could be bodily fluids, Detective Renadette said lab results showed the fluid used in earlier Cincinnati cases was not urine, semen or blood.

        Krista, who asked that her last name and address be withheld, said she was attacked in May while shopping with her mother at a Colerain Township Kmart.

        “I was in the beverage aisle (and) noticed this man who was looking at me,” she said. “He just kept staring.”

        Suddenly her mom told her she thought the man had spit on Krista.

        “It was from the middle of my back all the way down to the middle of my (bottom). And it was wide. I was very embarrassed.”

        The whole episode left Krista disgusted — and a bit nervous.

        “It's perverse,” she said. “I'm worried that he's going to pick up somebody. Is he marking you for the future?”

       Jim Hannah contributed to this report.
       

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