Man in Virgin Mary T-shirt is wanted in attacks

‘I want to make you mine,’ he reportedly told 1 of his 2 victims.

Police are searching for a man who they said brazenly attacked two women this week inside their apartments in East Hollywood and Echo Park.

Authorities released surveillance footage Tuesday hoping that would help detectives identify and find the man before his attacks escalate.

“He is a sexual predator and we need to get him off the streets,” said Officer Tony Im, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Surveillance video captured the man walking to the front door of one woman’s apartment building in the 800 block of North Mariposa Avenue in East Hollywood and waving to a resident, who opened the door and let him inside.

The man is seen walking casually through the lobby around 12:20 p.m. Monday before using his green shirt displaying an image of the Virgin Mary to grab the doorknob of the woman’s apartment, which she had left unlocked while she went to the building’s laundry room. Holding a plastic bag and a beverage in one hand, the man slips inside.

Once inside, the man waited for the victim, according to police; she returned to her apartment five minutes later to find him standing behind the door.

Police said the attacker covered the woman’s mouth with one hand and pushed her against the wall. She fell to the ground and began screaming, and the man ran out of her apartment.

An hour and a half later, the man was recorded on video walking through the parking garage of an apartment building in the 1600 block of Cortez Street in Echo Park, police said.

He entered the building and the apartment of the second victim, who was at home and had also left her front door unlocked.

As he ducked inside her apartment, her dogs began barking. She walked out of her room and saw the man in the living room.

She asked, “What’s happening?” police said. The man replied, “You’re pretty; I want to make you mine!”

Then he attacked, slipping his hands in her shirt and fondling her. When she tried to pull away, he pinned her to the couch, police said.

The woman’s dogs tried to bite his leg, and she was able to break free and push him out of her apartment.