Six sex crimes reported near Aggieville and Kansas State in Manhattan, police say

Investigators have found a subject in six reported sex crimes near Aggieville and Kansas State University in Manhattan, officials said.

A woman reported a sexual battery in the 1100 block of Vattier at around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, the Riley County Police Department said on social media. That’s about one block north of Aggieville and two blocks east of K-State’s campus.

The woman told police that a dark-skinned, black man in his 20s grabbed her in a sexual manner, police said. A second woman reported being groped nearby by a man matching the description a short time later.

Within an hour, two more victims reported separate instances of a man matching the same description exhibiting lewd and lascivious behavior, police said. A fifth victim reported a similar instance at her home.

The K-State Police Department said in a statement that officers received a separate report on Wednesday of lewd and lascivious conduct at the D-1 parking lot on the west side of campus near Memorial Stadium. The subject in that case matched the description of the other cases.

Riley County police said they were trying to locate a 2016 GMC Acadia with Mississippi license plate AEC351 driven by a man matching the description. At around 2 p.m., police said they had found the vehicle and subject and thanked the public for helping.

The investigation is ongoing and no additional information was available, police said.

Kansas statutes define lewd and lascivious behavior as:

• Publicly engaging in otherwise lawful sexual intercourse or sodomy with knowledge or reasonable anticipation that the participants are being viewed by others; or
• publicly exposing a sex organ or exposing a sex organ in the presence of a person who is not the spouse of the offender and who has not consented thereto, with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of the offender or another.
  
  

This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 2:52 PM.