![\"Philadelphia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IADMBXGDNRBWDF5YKGGFEVL2K4.jpg\")
Philadelphia police are searching for a masked suspect who has been terrorizing women.<\/p>\nPHILADELPHIA (WPVI) \u2013 Philadelphia police are searching for a suspect who has been wearing a Halloween mask and terrorizing women.<\/p>\n
No weapon is readily visible in publicly available images from the encounters, but police allege the suspect implied he had one at one point.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia police are searching for a masked suspect who has been terrorizing women.<\/p>\n
One would-be victim, who goes by Jameka W., said she fought back and refused to become a victim.<\/p>\n
When the masked stranger approached her in Center City last Wednesday morning, she squared up and kicked him in the chest.<\/p>\n
It happened around 5:15 a.m. near 15th Street and Broad Street.<\/p>\n
Jameka believes the person who targeted her is the same suspect police said was caught on camera chasing a woman outside City Hall minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
Before her own encounter, Jameka said she spotted the masked suspect approaching a runner who was wearing earphones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started to wave at her from across the intersection and say, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s someone behind you,\u2019\u201d Jameka said.<\/p>\n
She then witnessed him try to force his way into a coffee shop before turning his attention toward her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured that, if anything was going to happen, I wanted to see it with my own two eyes,\u201d Jameka said.<\/p>\n
She turned around, screamed and yelled, and put her hands up to fight, but something seemed off about the scary stranger.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just seemed so disoriented about what his goals actually were. I had bags. He wasn\u2019t reaching for those. It didn\u2019t seem like he had a clear goal to actually get in La Colombe to do anything,\u201d Jameka said. \u201cSo. I was like, \u2018OK, well let\u2019s see if you can fight.\u2019 And he couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said the suspect accosted several people in a 15-minute span.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was holding his cellphone up in front of her, at which time he asks her, \u2018Are you ready to die?\u2019\u201d Philadelphia police Capt. Jason Smith said.<\/p>\n
The suspect ultimately fled into Suburban Station.<\/p>\n
Until he\u2019s caught, Jameka has a message for people in Center City who rise early, especially women.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep your keys in between your fingers. Just do everything you can to make sure you feel safe,\u201d Jameka said.<\/p>\n
Police said the suspect could face several charges.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WPVI via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) \u2013 Philadelphia police are searching for a suspect who has been wearing a Halloween mask and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[732,113003,69,71,70,8221,450,79528],"class_list":["post-268067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-halloween","tag-masked","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-scary","tag-suspect","tag-threats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}