Greyhound bus station attack
NEWPORT NEWS -- A sign stuck on one of the front doors of the Greyhound bus station Wednesday night informs people: "Terminal is closed. Buses will still come through." Unusual, perhaps, but the word to describe the reason for the locked doors is "criminal."
Late Wednesday morning, Newport News police officers say someone went into the small terminal on Warwick Boulevard near Denbigh Boulevard and forced a clerk into the back of the building at gunpoint. Once there, the detectives say the person with the handgun sexually assaulted the 30-year-old. He took money from the station, then headed out the back door.
"She's a friendly person," says bus driver Leonard Ware, "helps everyone, comes out here, greets the driver, loads the bus, unloads the bus."
Ware has known the clerk for about six years.
"Can't stand people that would do something like that to a woman, anyway," he tells 13News. "If it happened to anyone, I would feel the same way, but just me knowing her, personally, yeah, that's, it's a real shocker."
Newport News Police Department spokesman Lou Thurston explains it's seldom that you find the crime of sexual assault coupled with a robbery.
"When you put those two together, it's a little more disturbing," says Thurston. "It's two violent crimes, so our concern is we need to find this guy and get him off the street as quickly as we possibly can."
The attacker wore all black and a mask, so the 30-year-old wasn't able to get a look at his face. Detectives believe once he got out of the building he headed towards the area behind the station and the shopping center that's there.
If you know anything about this case, call Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.
