CLEVELAND — A 27-year-old man wanted by the U.S. Marshals for allegedly attacking two women in Tremont Saturday is also a suspect in an incident where a woman said she was groped while shopping at Target on 117th Street the same day.
Kevin Ballard is named in the police report as a suspect. An arrest warrant for rape has been filed against Ballard in Cleveland Municipal Court for the incident at Target. He is wanted on a slew of other charges, including abduction, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and gross sexual imposition, following two incidents on the same day that were just minutes apart in Tremont that morning.
On Saturday at around 3:20 p.m., a woman reported she was in the greeting cards section when she noticed someone was following her. Questioning herself, she looked around but didn’t see anyone.
She told security that as she continued to read the cards, an unknown man walked up to her “out of nowhere," went behind her, firmly grabbed her crotch area with his hands and made a lewd comment to her before he walked away, the report said.
Based on security footage from the parking lot, the suspect vehicle is a 2006 maroon Cadillac SUV. Security said he came into the store that day several times without buying anything before going back into his car and circling the parking lot.
Security footage shows the man, suspected to be Ballard, following the victim through the children’s clothing section and the greeting card section of the store.
On the same day, according to police documents, Ballard ran up to a door of a home on Starkweather Avenue in Tremont as a woman was closing it. Police said he forced the door open and strangled her. The woman kicked, screamed and was able to get away.
Then, police documents show, Ballard grabbed a woman who was walking home from a nearby coffee shop. He allegedly grabbed her by the waist and tried to get her to go with him. She threw coffee on him, he let go and she got away.
If you have information about Ballard, call the U.S. Marshals tip line at 1-866-4-WANTED.
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