Police in Snohomish County say a man groped two different women in two different grocery stores. It happened in Monroe, at the Fred Meyer and the Safeway off Highway 2.
“It’s a scary thing to think about,” Rachelle Dewey said as she stood in the Fred Meyer parking lot.
Imagine you’re grocery shopping -- maybe with your kids -- and a man you’ve never seen before brushes up against you.
The first time it happens, you may think it was an accident, which is exactly what a woman in the Monroe Safeway thought when it happened to her last week. But then the stranger did it a second time and a third time. Police said he groped her aggressively.
She screamed and he ran.
“We didn’t have a lot to go on, however our second incident occurred on Tuesday,” Debbie Willis, spokesperson for the Monroe Police Department, said.
In that incident, Willis said, a woman walking with her 4-year-old daughter in the Fred Meyer parking lot was grabbed hard from behind by the same man who was involved in the first incident.
“It’s frightening. It’s frightening to these women that are accosted while shopping in a store. There’s no expectation that’s going to happen and it should not happen to anyone,” Willis said.
The suspect had a Fred Meyer grocery bag so police pulled the surveillance footage from the checkout counter and spotted him.
He used a Fred Meyer rewards card, which is linked to his phone number.
“He’s living with his family and his mom asked why he was being arrested and he gave permission (for police) to tell why, and when she heard it, she said, ‘You did that?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’” Willis said.
The man is facing charges for fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation, a misdemeanor, but on Friday a judge decided to raise his bail to $25,000.
Dewey is relieved.
"I don't think you can trust anybody anymore, which is kind of scary. How do you teach your kids?
They can't look for one particular thing to stay safe," she said.
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