A homeless man was arrested Saturday and charged with trying to rape a mother in a Walgreens bathroom, police said.
Victor Augustus, 28, was charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, forcible touching, assault and harassment, the NYPD said. It wasn't clear whether he had an attorney.
A 50-year-old woman was inside a single-person bathroom at the back of the Bronx store Thursday afternoon when a man came barging in and grabbed her, police said.
The man pushed her to the ground and covered her mouth as he tried to take her pants off, according to police.
The store manager of the store heard the screams and ran to the bathroom, where he pulled the man off the woman. The suspect then ran out of the store on White Plains Road in the Wakefield neighborhood.
Witnesses say the woman was with her boy and infant and that the children may have been in the store when the attack unfolded.
“I see she was holding her kids, and she was shaking,” witness Tina Page said. “She was holding tight to them and scared. She was crying.”
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Other shoppers watched as a shaken woman walked out of the pharmacy. Page described a lot of commotion and panic as the woman was leaving the store.
“She was screaming she wanted pepper spray,” Page said. “She was calling her family.”
