Police question man in series of attacks on Asian women

CHICAGO - A man charged with impersonating a police officer is being questioned in a series of attacks on Asian women in Chicago and its suburbs, authorities said Wednesday.

Henry Price, 35, of Chicago was arrested near a martial arts studio in a shopping mall Tuesday after the studio's owner told police a man was hanging around outside, telling people he was a police officer.

Price was carrying a badge and a pair of handcuffs when he was arrested, police said.

He was being questioned about the attacks Wednesday, but had not been charged in any of them.

Price generally matches the description of the man suspected in eight physical and sexual assaults since April that have spread fear through Chicago's Asian communities, police said.

The attacker has posed as a census taker, a police officer or an FBI agent to get into women's homes. The most recent attack was reported Monday in Chicago.

Six of the assaults have been on Asian women. One was on an Asian girl and one on a Hispanic woman police said may have looked Asian to her attacker.

In the first attack, a man posing as an FBI agent told a 29-year-old Asian woman he had come to check her residency status. When she let him in, he sexually assaulted her, police said.

Several Asian-American groups banded together in recent weeks to translate police bulletins into several languages and spread word of the attacks in heavily Asian neighborhoods.

News of a possible break in the case was welcomed in Chicago's Asian neighborhoods.

But ''obviously, we don't want to let our guards down,'' said Grace Hou, executive director of the Chinese Mutual Aid Association in Chicago.

Members of the Illinois Asian American Hate Crime Network sent out a mass mailing Wednesday to Asian groups and churches warning them about the attacks and encouraging them to post fliers with sketches of the suspect.

The network was formed last year after a white supremacist went on a shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana against Asians, blacks and Jews.