Jan. 07--Police are seeking a man suspected in a string of violent robberies in Los Angeles apartment elevators involving four female victims, authorities said Tuesday.
The robberies followed similar patterns and took place in different apartment buildings in the Koreatown and East Hollywood areas, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a news release.
Each time, a man age 20 to 30 followed the women into an apartment elevator, where he punched them and stole their purses.
The robberies took place Nov. 23, Dec. 9, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30 between about 11 p.m. and 4:30 a.m., police said. All four women were Korean.
One victim was sexually battered and punched several times, police said. On Dec. 30, the man applied a "sharp object" to the neck of the woman he robbed before slamming her to the ground and kicking her.
The LAPD has posted surveillance footage from one of the robberies online.
The suspect is Latino, 5 foot 6 inches to 5 foot 8 inches tall and often wears shorts and a sweatshirt.
Anyone with information about the robberies is asked to call LAPD's Olympic Division robbery detectives at (213) 382-9460.
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