Woman in head scarf attacked at SJSU

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) -  A woman in a head scarf was attacked at a San Jose State University parking garage on Wednesday afternoon, school officials said.

The victim, Esra Altun, was walking on the third floor of the West Garage at South Fourth and East San Salvador streets around 2:10 p.m., when the suspect came up from behind her and tugged down her head scarf, school officials said in a campus alert.

The suspect choked the victim, who lost her balance from the impact of the attack, then ran away, school officials said.

"Right now I'm feeling heartbreak that this had to happen," Altun, a psychology student said. 

The victim said she had just left a group of friends on the ground floor of the West Garage and made her way to her car on the third floor. As she reached into her trunk, a male suspect tried to pull off her heads carf, known as a hijab. 

"My attacker pulled, held on tight to the back of my head, pulled the scarf and in doing so, choked me," Altun said. 

The suspect was described as a fair-skinned male who wore a dark-colored hoodie and khaki pants, according to school officials.

"We have incidents of various kinds that happen from time to time, so we haven't identified any trend or spike in incidents for example against students of Muslim descent. We haven't seen that," said Mary Papazian, Ph.D and SJSU president. 

"We are, of course, very concerned that this has occurred on our campus," university spokeswoman Pat Lopes Harris said in a statement today.

"No one should experience this kind of behavior at San Jose State," she said.

No arrests have been made as of this morning in the attack, which remains under investigation, Harris said.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call university police at (408) 924-2222. Those who wish to remain anonymous may call the department's CrimeStoppers line at (408) 924-2236 or send an email to sjsu@tipnow.org.