SRJC victim talks about attack

A Santa Rosa Junior College employee said Friday she fought off her attacker with her fists, screams, bites and any object she could use as a weapon.

"I tried to reason with him, but then I finally went into scream mode," she said in her first public comments since the Tuesday morning attack at the campus. "I thought, 'I could end up dead.'"

The 59-year-old longtime employee recounted the attack that left her with extensive bruises and cuts. She said she was speaking about the incident with the hope that more details will help police catch the suspect.

"I'm not going to let him win," she said.

The woman spoke by phone from her home on condition of anonymity. The Press Democrat typically does not identify the victims of sexual abuse.

On Tuesday morning, she said, she was working alone in an office in the back of the Burbank Auditorium building. No classes were in session, and there were few students on campus.

At 10:45 a.m., she answered a knock at her door.

"He was wearing a wife-beater (tank top), carrying a light gray or white sweat shirt. He had that over his face," she said.

He threw the sweat shirt over her head and pushed her back into the office.

Almost immediately he wrestled her to the ground and sat on her head to try and control her, she said.

"I hit him a lot and grabbed a bottle off the floor," she said. But he grabbed it out of her hand. During the struggle, she said, she grabbed for anything to hit him with, but never got a good blow in to stop him. There was no pause, only fighting.

"I just told myself, 'Just keep moving, don't hold still for anything,'" she said, enduring lewd comments and repeated hits from her attacker. He was wearing black cloth gloves and dark pants. She bit his leg and his arm. But he was relentless, she said.

"He got his pants down, he got my pants down," she said.

"I started screaming, and I'm an actor so I can scream pretty well," she said. "The screaming was the thing that made him leave. I slammed the door closed."

She was not raped. She had survived.

She reached for her cell phone, but in the panic of the moment, phone numbers initially escaped her: "I kept dialing 1-1-1."

She finally reached a colleague who called police.

SRJC detectives are following up on tips, but still are in search of solid leads, Sgt. Don Silverek said.

He said he's personally received about 11 tips from callers. Other officers and cooperating agencies also are following up on tips.

"We're not in pursuit of anybody," Silverek said.

Detectives sent the victim's clothing to be analyzed by crime-lab technicians, but it's unclear whether the suspect left any evidence.

The woman said she doesn't know if she cut him or if her bites did any injury. She described her attacker as a short, stocky Latino male, perhaps 25 to 30 years old, with short, spiky brown hair.

"I know there was blood around, but I think it might have been my blood," she said.

Leslie McCauley, chairwoman of the theater arts department housed in the Burbank Auditorium, said staff members are more angry than scared that a colleague was attacked.

"We all work late nights -- we're in the theater -- but this happened during the day during normal working hours and that's what's thrown everybody," McCauley said.

The auditorium is a maze of hallways, classrooms and offices, and McCauley said the department may incorporate a buddy system to ensure no staff member or student is alone in the building.

At least one lock will be changed, she said.

Marty Kinahan, an instructor in the physical education department, has offered to teach a self-defense workshop for department staff and students.

But for the employee who survived the attack, the campus where she's worked for about 30 years still feels like home, she said. She was back at work Thursday to finish an important project.

"I'm glad it didn't happen to somebody else who couldn't have fought him or who would have been too scared to fight," she said. "That doesn't mean I don't wish it didn't happen."

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220.