Authorities Arrest Man Suspected Of Sexually Assaulting Santa Monica College Students

Nick Fenley
·2 min read
2

Law enforcement officials in Southern California have apprehended a suspect who’s believed to have sexually assaulted numerous female students at Santa Monica College (SMC).

“Today at approximately 8:20 a.m., Christopher Noah Griddine II, age 27, was taken into custody on a probable cause arrest warrant for felony sexual assault,” SMC Chief of Police Johnnie Adams said to The Corsair, an on-campus publication.

“The arrest was made on the SMC Campus by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department with the assistance of the Santa Monica College Police,” he noted.

After being apprehended, authorities transported Griddine — a student at SMC — to the South Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station, where he was held on a bail of $1M.

“This is an active investigation being conducted by the Sheriff’s department,” Adams continued. “Should you have any information that would assist with this investigation, you are encouraged to call Sergeant Belen Lemus of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau at 562-946-7012.”

Griddine’s arrest comes just a few days after a crime alert was sent out to SMC students in order to warn them of a man who had been “befriending female SMC students near the Drescher Hall and luring them off campus before sexually assaulting them,” The Corsair reports.

We should also note that there are reportedly at least 2 accusers in the case.

Now that a suspect has been apprehended in the case, which was opened earlier this month, many students are breathing a sigh of relief.

“It’s good that he’s not here anymore,” a 25-year-old business major named Hannah Bryne said of the news, The Corsair reports.

While she was glad that authorities have nabbed a suspect in the case, Maya Malouf — a 20-year-old film major — says that they took far too long to do so.

“I feel like he should have been apprehended faster. It was quite a while, while he was lurking,” Malouf told The Corsair.

“It was terrifying, honestly,” Jessica Perrina, a communications major, added, the publication reports. “As a woman trying to make friends, I was like, ‘I shouldn’t even try anymore.'”