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Suspect In Greenway Assault Was On Probation For Similar Attack

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RALEIGH, N.C. — Raleigh police have arrested a suspect in connection with an attack on a female jogger on a Raleigh greenway last Friday.

Jamaal McLeod was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree sexual assault.

Police said he approached Jean Burke on the Capital Area Greenway near Raleigh Boulevard when she got separated from her jogging partner, grabbed her, touched her inappropriately and dragged her to the ground.

"Eventually, he had me on the ground. And that's when I grabbed his glasses and I threw them," Burke said. "And so, he started dragging me to get his glasses, and finally he just let me go."

Burke and her jogging partner, Joanie Taylor, told WRAL that they had seen McLeod on the greenway before and that he had made inappropriate comments to them in the past.

"We'd seen him before, and I was concerned about him because we knew he had said inappropriate things," Taylor said.

Taylor and Burke said they reported the same man to police on April 18 last year when he allegedly made inappropriate comments to them.

On April 19, a woman on the greenway was attacked.

Court records show McLeod was arrested and charged with that attack, but he was put on probation and ordered to do community service.

"Just locking him up and letting him go is not going to keep him from doing it again," Burke said. "He needs some kind of help."

McLeod is being held in the Wake County Jail under a $200,000 bond.

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