Deputies searching for man accused of entering apartment, assaulting 9-year-old girl

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    WASHINGTON COUNTY, OR (KPTV) — Deputies are searching for a suspect who is accused of assaulting a young girl after entering an apartment in Washington County on Wednesday.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office said the incident occurred on Northwest Heritage Parkway in the area of Southwest 185th Avenue and Southwest Baseline Road.

FOX 12 spoke with the girl’s mother, Darling Fredrick, who describes the bizarre attack as frustrating and scary.

“My children have never felt unsafe at home and now they feel like they’re not safe in their own damn home,” she said.

The sheriff’s office says a stranger broke into the family’s apartment Wednesday afternoon and punched a 9-year-old girl twice – once in the arm and once in the groin – and then took off.

Fredrick says her daughter and 7-year-old son were home alone at the time because she briefly left to check on a work project. That’s when she got the stunning phone call from her daughter, so she called police and rushed home.

“I’m just surprised, shocked this happened for sure,” she said.

Fredrick says the crime was senseless. She says her daughter was just watching TV inside when she noticed someone was in the grass right behind their home.

“The person got annoyed or irritated that she was staring at them and opened our back door, ended up calling her the b word, said, ‘What are you looking at b’ and then just started punching her,” Fredrick said.

Fortunately, the little girl wasn’t badly hurt, but her mother says her daughter locked herself inside their detached garage unit for part of the afternoon, too afraid to come inside the house.

“She’s OK, she’s scared, and she wants me to make sure the house is safe and everything, and I let her know that everybody’s on the lookout, all the neighbors know,” Fredrick said.

The girl’s 7-year-old brother told officers he saw the man leave through the back door of the apartment.

A K-9 search was conducted, but the suspect was not found.

Fredrick says she’s now going to be putting security cameras up, hoping to eventually regain some peace of mind for her family.

“This person comes into our space, our safe space that I’ve created for my children and come in and disrupted that right now.”

The sheriff’s office described the suspect as a Black man between the ages of 18 to 25, 6 feet tall and wearing blue jeans and a red hoodie with “GAP” on the front.

Anyone with information about the incident or the suspect should contact dispatchers at 503-629-0111.

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