Flasher Incident No. 3 This Week In Palo Alto; Cops Not Sure If Related To Others

Palo Alto police are investigating a Thursday indecent exposure incident, the third to occur in the city this week.

Police said they don’t know if this incident, reported around 4 p.m. on Thursday, is related to two earlier incidents reported on Monday and Tuesday.

Police said the victim, a woman in her 20s, was riding her bicycle in the 4300 block of Miller Avenue when she saw a vehicle drive by and stop ahead of her in the middle of the street. As she rode by, a man called to her, so she stopped to looked and saw the man masturbating.

[Previous: Palo Alto Police On High Alert Since 2 Girls Reported Indecent Exposure Incidents On Monday & Tuesday.]

Police said she immediately rode away and reported the incident about 30 minutes later. The victim described the suspect as a white male between 40 and 50 years old.

She said he was clean-cut “professional looking” and was wearing a yellow button-down shirt and “sporty” sunglasses.

He was in a white four-door BMW. Police said Thursday’s incident occurred about three miles from incidents on Monday and Tuesday in which a man exposed himself to 14- and 10-year-old girls.

Police in Belmont, meanwhile, are collaborating with Palo Alto law enforcement on a similar case that occurred this mornng.

Belmont police believe that the same man who is sought in Palo Alto for indecent exposure may have struck there, as well.

Belmont Police Capt. Patrick Halleran says that around 7:40 a.m. Friday, two women were sitting inside Peets Coffee in the 1200 block of El Camino, near the windows that face the street.

[From Belmont Patch: Police: Man Seen Masturbating In Front of Belmont Coffee Shop.]

“They saw a white newer model 4-door BMW sedan parked at the curb and the male driver was masturbating,” Halleran said. “One of the women ran out of the coffee shop to get the vehicle license plate and the suspect drove off, southbound on El Camino, toward San Carlos.”

Unfortunately, there was no plate number to get, as it had unknown paper plates on it, according to Belmont police.

The man was described as white, in his 30s, with short dark hair and is clean-shaven. He was dressed professionally, wearing a button-down shirt.

In the Monday incident in Palo Alto, a man in a navy blue pickup truck pulled up next to a 14-year-old girl just before 5 p.m. and started masturbating while staring at her.

That incident occurred in the 1600 block of Bryant Street near Castillija School, a middle and high school for girls.

In the Tuesday incident, a 10-year-old girl was walking her dog just after 6:30 p.m. near Byron Street and Seale Avenue between Jordan Middle School and Walter Hays Elementary School when a man pulled up in a four-door Volvo, exposed himself and asked the girl if she wanted to touch his penis.

Police said extra staffing has been brought in to help investigate the cases, and there has been an increased presence of marked and unmarked patrols that are paying attention to school commute routes used by students.

Anyone with information on these cases is asked to call the police department’s 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413.

Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text or voicemail to (65) 383-8984.

-- Renee Schiavone (Patch Staff) and Bay City News contributed to this report.