17 Criminal Counts Filed Against Guard in Freeway Attacks

A security guard from Whittier--who police believe committed at least seven assaults on lone women motorists while posing as a police officer--was charged Wednesday with 17 criminal counts in connection with the attacks.

Police alleged that David McGregor, 18, committed most of the attacks in the early morning hours near the Pomona Freeway between Pico Rivera and Hacienda Heights during the last two weekends.

McGregor was charged in Citrus Municipal Court with false imprisonment, impersonating a police officer, assault with intent to commit rape, battery, grand theft, threatening with a deadly weapon and assault with a caustic chemical, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ingrid Uhler.

McGregor, a high school dropout, pleaded not guilty and was being held Wednesday night in Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Method of Assault

In all of the assaults, officers said, McGregor allegedly forced the women to pull over by shining a white, hand-held spotlight that he plugged into his car’s cigarette lighter. Then, dressed in the dark uniform and cap that he wore for his all-night job patrolling a car dealership in the City of Industry, he demanded to see the women’s driver’s licenses, officers said.

“He was obviously using his entire power to impersonate an officer so that he could do whatever he wanted to these women,” Uhler said. “I’d say he was acting pretty sinister.”

McGregor’s family and friends, however, said in interviews this week that they believe him to be innocent, a victim of mistaken identity. They described him as a sensitive, grief-stricken young man who lost his mother to suicide last April, leaving him and his two brothers to fend for themselves.

Driver’s Assessment

“He’s so loving and caring,” said Larry Whitlatch, 42, a truck driver, who for more than five years had been the live-in companion of McGregor’s mother, Jesse, until she died. “It has to be a case of mistaken identity. It can’t be him. It just can’t be.”

But police, who said David McGregor has had several brushes with the law, mostly as a juvenile, are convinced he was the impostor.

The trail of evidence led to him after several victims recalled the name of a security firm emblazoned on the attacker’s uniform, deputies at the sheriff’s substation in Walnut said.

Company officials then told police that McGregor--a thin man with curly blond, shoulder-length hair, a slight mustache and sunken cheeks--fit the description given by the victims.

Officers arrested McGregor on Monday after they found an older brown Datsun--with a spotlight in it--in his driveway. Victims had described the attacker’s car as a dark-colored compact.

Police said they were convinced they had arrested the right man when a photo of McGregor was placed in a lineup with five other photos of similar-looking young men. Six of the seven victims were able to positively identify him as the assailant, police said.