Attacker sought in Battle Creek

BATTLE CREEK (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - The search continues for a gunman who attacked two teenage girls.

As badly as police want this guy off the streets people living near the attack want an arrest even more.

More than a week later, it's an image Tim McLiechey can't get out of his head. "They was literally, didn't have no clothes on," said McLiechey.

It was two 16-year-olds girls, running from behind a barbershop, crying. McLiechey's wife called out to them.

"She was like is there something wrong, and she was like, yeah, we've just been raped. Call police," said McLiechey.

Detectives say the two girls were walking with a friend near Elm and Bennett Streets around 11:30 last Wednesday when a man rode up on bike and pulled a handgun.

One teen got away. The other two were ordered behind a building, where police say the attacker sexually assaulted the pair at gunpoint before riding away on his bike.

Neighbors are disgusted. "Yeah, because I've got a 10-year-old sister and I'm scared to even let her go outside in the front yard because I don't want to see one of those little rapists or whatever they call themselves coming out here and grab her up," said neighbor John Shelton.

Police say the man partially covered his face during the attack. The best description is a black man is his teens or twenties, tall and thin, riding a black and gray mountain bike.

Right now investigators are following up on leads, but still have not been able to ID the attacker.

It leaves McLiechey on edge, worried he hasn't seen the worst yet.

"If he comes back over here and does it again and it's one of my family members, or one of my little girls. I mean, I don't know what I'd do," said McLiechey.