GEORGIA – Atlanta police have arrested a suspect involved in an attempted rape incident and investigators believe he was involved in a separate attack.
On Thursday May 20, 2021 at around 7:15am officers responded to a home on Peachtree Ave in NE Atlanta on a report of an attempted rape. The woman, who is a school teacher and mother of two, told officers she was returning from walking her dog when the male suspect ran up and dragged her into her garage. The victim told officers the suspect slammed her to the ground and violently assaulted her.
The victim fought back and was able to get to the inside of her home, but the suspect followed her. The victim eventually convinced the suspect to leave after she tripped her home alarm system, and he fled, taking her phone with him.
The suspect’s description was broadcast to other officers who began searching the area while cops were tracking the victim’s stolen phone using the “Find My Friends” app. Officers at the scene were able to guide other officers to nearby Garden Hills Park where the suspect was apprehended.
“He was just watching me,” the victim told WSB-TV. “He jumped on me like a leopard…jumped me and grabbed my hoodie around my neck and dragged me to my garage.”
“He had a rope in his pocket. He put the rope around my neck. I knew that if he got that rope around me, I’d be strangled.”
“Nobody should have to go through this. It was horrible,” she said. “I keep playing it in my head. I hear him saying terrible things to me, what he did to my body.”
Investigators from APD’s Special Victim Unit interviewed the suspect and were able to connect him to another similar attack on May 3rd on 5th St. The suspect, identified as Laquai Barrett, age 31, was arrested and is currently in the Fulton County Jail charged with two counts of Attempted Rape, two counts of Burglary, Battery, and Aggravated Assault.
