ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Roanoke police are investigating a woman's report that she was raped in the men's restroom of a downtown bar over the weekend.
A 23-year-old woman told police that she was at Corned Beef & Co. on Jefferson Street about 1:30 a.m. Saturday when she went to use the women's restroom.
The woman said a man she did not know grabbed her and pulled her into the adjacent men's restroom and locked the door. He then pushed her against the wall, pulled some of her clothing off and raped her, the woman told police.
After the woman screamed, she said, the man stopped and allowed her to walk out of the restroom.
The woman said she told a female friend she was with what had just happened. The two women searched the crowd for the assailant - described as a clean-shaven white male, about 25 years old and 6 feet tall with light brown hair - but could not find him.
She then went home and called a rape hot line. After talking to a counselor, she went to Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, where police were called.
Police said the woman gave a detailed description of the assailant, remembering that he wore a green baseball cap and a pink or red pullover shirt with buttons on the front.
Chris Pollock, manager of Corned Beef, said Monday that he had not been informed of the woman's report. The bar was open at the time the woman said she was raped, and downtown Roanoke was more crowded than normal because of the First Friday at Five celebration earlier in the evening.
In other police reports Monday:
* A 54-year-old woman told police that a man approached her in the 600 block of Eighth Street about 10:23 p.m. Saturday and asked her if she had a problem with purse snatchers. When she said no, the woman told police, the man grabbed her purse and fled.
* A 15-year-old boy suffered a broken nose and cuts to his face during a fight at a party early Sunday morning on Kellogg Avenue Northwest. The youth, who told police that a man hit him in the face with a beer bottle, was treated at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital.
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