By Muhammad Hamza and Antonio Peláez Barceló
A Humber College employee and a student were assaulted — one sexually attacked — on Tuesday by a man Toronto Police are now seeking.
Police said they consider the suspected to be violent and anyone who sees him should call 9-1-1. Investigators were called to the area twice on March 28 for two assaults, about two hours apart in the area surrounding Humber College Lakeshore campus.
In a security alert message sent by Humber College to Lakeshore staff, the school reported that at approximately 4:15 pm, a 33 year-old woman walking on Lakeshore Boulevard West, west of Kipling Avenue was grabbed by the arm by the suspect.
A 26-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by a man at about 6:30 p.m. in the same area, the alert stated.
Toronto Police said they believe the attacks involved the same suspect.
“Investigators believe that both occurrences are related,” they said.
The police released two surveillance images of the suspect.
They described the man as being 5-8 to 5-11 tall, with a slim to medium build, with possible marks on his face.
Rob Kilfoyle, director of Public Safety and Emergency Management at Humber College, said Humber is providing additional images to police.
“We have good descriptions from several of the survivors,” Kilfoyle said. “We also have obtained some good video surveillance, not of the incidents, but of the suspect.”
Haysi Vale, a public relations student, said she passed by the suspect on Wednesday, laying down on a bench by the War Heroes Memorial in front of 3146 Lake Shore Blvd.
“I saw him yesterday at around 12 p.m.”, she said.
Vale said she didn’t know anything about the incidents until shown the surveillance images of the suspect provided by police.
Vale, who came from Cuba around 25 years ago, said he was wearing a hoodie.
“He was looking around people, he locked eyes with me and then I went another way,” she said. “He definitely gave the impression he was up to no good.”
Kilfoyle said the Humber Guardian app may be useful in this cases.
“There’s a Friend Walk feature, which allows you to send your location to another person,” Kilfoyle said.
He also said that at Lakeshore campus there was a security alert “paraphrasing the Toronto police alert that went out.”
But no security guard consulted by Humber News knew about the incident when asked at 11 a.m. Thursday
More than 10 students were interviewed by Humber News and none of them knew about this issue either.
“When these incidents were reported to police, they immediately came to the area,” Kilfoyle said.
Regarding the victims of the assault, Kilfoyle said he’d been informed they were scared but have not been injured.
“I just know that one of them was an employee, and one of them was a student,” he said.
Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to call 22 Division at 416-808-2200.