Police arrested the suspect on Thursday who is a registered sex offender.
The mother of a 14-year-old Sunnyside High School teen did not want to show her face on camera, but she described the scary moments her daughter experienced while walking to school Wednesday morning. "She was by herself and she says some man just started following her. And she was trying to get away from him but he kept on following her."
She said her daughter woke up late and missed the city bus to school. While walking on Kings Canyon near Willow, a man who police say was 23-year-old Andre Taylor, tried to pick up the girl and even gave her his phone number before sexually assaulting her.
"The suspect started following her and asking her kind of inappropriate questions and making inappropriate statements to her and she was nervous about that. During those contacts, he groped her and then he fled," said Nina Jacobs with the Fresno Police Department.
The victim was able to get away and make it to Sunnyside High School. There, she alerted a campus resource officer about what had happened. And since she had his phone number, police had a valuable lead.
"The victim she did a good job of being aware of her surroundings, reporting it immediately because some victims get embarrassed and they won't report it, and we aren't able to locate or identify these suspects who are doing these types of things," said Jacobs.
With the suspects phone number, and the victim's detailed description -- police were able to make an arrest Thursday morning. Andre Taylor was arrested on sexual battery charges, and for violating his sexual registration.
This wasn't the first time Taylor had broken the law. In 2009, he pled no contest to sexual battery and indecent exposure.
"I'm glad he's arrested and hopefully they put him in for awhile -- because my daughter shouldn't not have gone through that," said the victim's mother.
