Posted on 12/16/2005 6:25:47 PM PST by willieroe
Memphis police say a New York journalist on the run and wanted for sexual assault slashed himself in the neck several times when officers spotted him on the University of Memphis campus Friday.
Officials say Peter Braunstein, 41, was walking near Patterson and Norriswood Friday afternoon when campus police saw him. Braunstein pulled out a knife and slashed himself in the neck, said MPD Sgt. Vince Higgins. He was taken to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis in critical condition.
Braunstein is a freelance writer whose works have been in The Village Voice and Women's Wear Daily. Hes accused of dressing as a fireman and sexually assaulting a woman for 13 hours in her New York apartment on Halloween.
According to police, Braunstein started a small fire in the woman's building so she'd let him in, thinking he was there to put it out. Once inside the apartment, he put a chloroform-laced rag on her face.
On Nov. 28, Braunstein was paid $20 for giving blood at a Memphis blood bank. After seeing stories about him on "Americas Most Wanted," two front desk clerks at Tennessee Blood Services on Poplar called police.
Braustein was also spotted in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
Works for me, saves money all around!
U of M is a very sprawled campus ... someone with his description, walking away from the campus proper would surely stick out like a green thumb.
After getting away with pretending to be a fireman, he was pretending to be Jack the ripper.
A really big NYC story.
Note to self: Check the NYPost tomorrow.
What do you expect from a New York elitist liberal? This is the typical behavior of these rat faced dems.
Not really. It looks as if he survived.
not your usual AMW name...shoe fetish guy right?
.45 brain stem shot to recover.
"Nobody move, or the journalist gets it!"
Someone has got to teach those ambulance drivers how to drive slower.
shoe fetish guy
Al bundy?
bttt
Related:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1541992/posts
Peter Braunstein Arrested In Memphis, TN
Dec 16, 2005 6:51 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) A fugitive New York fashion writer wanted for questioning in a bizarre sexual attack slashed himself in the neck with a knife after he was confronted by police Friday on a college campus in Tennessee.
Peter Braunstein, 42, who had tormented investigators for weeks by popping up in public, only to disappear again, was spotted by a woman on the campus of the University of Memphis, who police said recognized him from media reports.
She called campus police, who caught up with Braunstein and stopped him, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
``He said, 'I'm the person you're looking for,' and he stabbed himself three times in the neck,'' Browne said.
Braunstein was hospitalized in critical condition, police said.
New York police had been hunting since early November for the freelance journalist, once a writer for Women's Wear Daily.
The media has been equally hot on his trail, reporting on alleged sightings in New York and around the country. The hunt grew national when Braunstein was featured in a recent segment of the TV show ``America's Most Wanted.''
Police said they want to question Braunstein about a Halloween attack on a woman by a man who bluffed his way into her apartment by posing as a firefighter.
The fake fireman bound the woman and molested her over 13 hours, police said.
Investigators said they believed Braunstein was obsessed with the victim, although he has not been formally charged in the attack.
A $12,000 reward had been offered for information leading to Braunstein's arrest and his father had made several public appeals, begging his son to turn himself in.
News media in New York and Tennessee have reported that witnesses had spotted Braunstein on Nov. 29 selling his blood for $20 at a donation center in Memphis.
A front desk clerk at the blood bank said Braunstein used his real name and a passport for identification. He told the clerks he was freelance journalist on his way to Kansas.
The clerk later recognized Braunstein on ``America's Most Wanted'' and called police, said Steve Stamey, the bank's operations manager.
``They said he was clean shaven. Just looked like a regular kind of guy,'' Stamey told the Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis. ``They said he was really cocky at first and then he got nicer.''
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