Kensington prostitutes more likely to step up to help find strangler

The increased police scrutiny on Kensington in the wake of a series of killings and sexual assaults has had at least one positive side effect: Prostitutes in the neighborhood are coming forward to report crimes committed against them.

"Now that everyone is looking at this area, I think we're getting a lot of things reported to us that probably wouldn't have been," Philadelphia Capt. James Clark said this week.

As authorities continue to hunt for the man or men responsible for three slayings and at least three assaults in the area, police have flooded the crime-plagued neighborhood.

Women who work as prostitutes or engage in other illegal activities are often distrustful of cooperating with police, said Jill Maier, director of counseling services for Women Organized Against Rape, a crisis and outreach center. But the officers who are canvassing Kensington have demonstrated that they are working hard to find the person or people who have been terrorizing women there, she said.

"It's great to see the dedication of some of these officers, and the police are getting more of these women coming in to the stations and filing reports," Maier said. "It's really encouraging."

The New Kensington Community Development Corp. is holding a community vigil at 6 p.m. Friday at Jasper and Cumberland Streets as a show of neighborhood solidarity.

Three women have been strangled in Kensington since Nov. 3, two of whom were killed by the same man, police believe. Two women have reported being choked into unconsciousness and sexually assaulted, and a third has said she was hit with a brick. All three surviving victims have described essentially the same man as their attacker. Police are investigating possible connections between those and several other recent assaults in the area.

The department also has formed a task force of detectives from the Homicide and Special Victims Units; uniformed officers from the 24th and 26th Districts, which cover Kensington; and Vice and Narcotics Field Units officers. Homicide is leading the force, which also has reached out to federal agencies for any intelligence and assistance they can provide, said Lt. Raymond Evers, police spokesman.

Evers declined to provide the number of officers assigned to the force, but said they were questioning prostitutes, drug dealers, and informants. They also are serving arrest warrants and searching for anyone with information on the attacks.