PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh police arrested a man in connection to a series of prowling incidents in and around the campus.
You can now customize your WPXI News App to receive Allegheny County news alerts. CLICK HERE to find out how.
Channel 11 spoke with the young woman who helped police track the suspect down.
Pitt junior Shira Perloff was able to capture, on a home camera, the man police say was prowling around Meyran Avenue in Oakland.
“He’s on camera here, he goes for the window right there and as a car starts coming, he walks away,” Perloff said. “A few weeks ago, we saw a reflection in our window, we saw the blinds move. And from that moment on, we knew something was off. And then we received word from our neighbors who have cameras on their porch, that some man had been trying to open their windows at night.”
Perloff says Demarco’s handprints are even visible on her bedroom window.
She, along with nearly 10 other young women in her building, put signs around the property hoping to scare Demarco away.
What stopped him is when Perloff called the police.
“I had been sitting on the porch with my friends and I looked across the street, and he was point-blank staring right at us. It seemed as if he knew exactly when I sat up to call the cops, he walked by and started taking off,” Perloff said.
When Pittsburgh police spotted Demarco in the area, he fled on foot, prompting campus police to respond.
Police said Demarco was arrested Tuesday and faces several charges including:
- Two counts of felony criminal trespass
- One count of misdemeanor loitering and prowling at night
- One count of misdemeanor escape
Perloff says she’s learned a valuable lesson out of this frightening ordeal.
“You think safety in numbers at night, but it also made us think that there is absolutely safety in numbers in daylight too. You never know who is around.”
Another criminal complaint from 2020 shows Demarco was arrested and charged in connection to another prowling incident in East Pittsburgh.
TRENDING NOW:
©2021 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
