Residents of San Francisco's Mission District are breathing a little easier this week now that police have announced the arrest of a man suspected of perpetrating a shocking string of violent of sexual assaults in the neighborhood.
A tip from a member of the public led police to arrest 32-year old Frederick Dozier on a slew of charges including rape, attempted murder, robbery and false imprisonment.
The first attack took place June 17, when Dozier allegedly assaulted and robbed a woman in her 20s at 3 a.m. near the intersection of 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue.
Police also suspect Dozier in a Nov. 18 attack of a woman in her 50s near 24th Street and Potrero Avenue around 4:15 a.m. and the Dec. 8 assault of a woman in her 30s near 24th and Fair Oaks streets around 6:15 a.m.
The attacks grew move violent over time. In the final incident, so much blood was spilled that the Fire Department had to be called in afterward to clean the sidewalk.
Initially, Dozier was only suspected of being responsible for the latter two assaults; however, DNA evidence also connected him to the incident in July.
Dozier was arrested last Friday at the Bernal Dwellings Housing Projects, only blocks away from where all three attacks took place.
Disconcertingly for area parents, Dozier was employed part-time as a student nutrition services worker at the San Francisco Unified School District, although he was let go subsequent to his arrest. SFUSD spokesperson Gentle Blythe told Bay City News that Dozier successfully passed a background screening when he was initially hired. She added that, "the criminal assaults with which he is charged have no connection to his duties or responsibilities...and were not directed toward children.
This arrest isn't the first time that Dozier has been in trouble with the law. In 2007, he was convicted of assault in San Mateo County, a charge that was drawn down from an initial count of misdemeanor domestic violence as part of a plea bargain. As a result, he served two years probation and was forced to take anger management classes
On his Facebook page, Dozier left a series of cryptic, if unsettling, posts around the dates that the rapes took place. On November 12th he wrote:
I think when people say things this year of 2011 you have to understand what they are saying if not everything that you feel is right in life just may turn into something that will hunt you be ready...
On December 9th, only one day after the third attack, Dozier wrote:
just can't see how realationship in this time that we like wait call the present , that you can be with someone that you care for that you would do everything for right but you make a fatal move that can make thing all bad and thing will never go back to be the same so real about the one you with keep it soild and be a real a woman or male in the realationship....
If convicted, Dozier could face 100 years to life in prison.
The Fair Oaks Community Coalition has started a fund to support the victims of the attacks. Donations can be made to: 24th Street Survivors Fund c/o Sterling Bank and Trust, 3800 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114.
Check out this video of surveillance footage that served as SFPD's first visual identification of the alleged rapist: