A Surrey man has been arrested in connection to a recent unprovoked assault on a woman near the 22nd Street SkyTrain station.
Earlier this month, the New Westminster Police Department appealed to the public for assistance in identifying a suspect in an unprovoked assault that had happened a day earlier near the 700 block of 22nd Street. With the help of Metro Vancouver Transit Police, the NWPD shared photos of the suspect in the hopes that someone would recognize him.
“We’d like to express our gratitude to the person who saw our appeal for assistance, recognized the suspect and reached out to us,” said NWPD spokesperson Sgt. Justine Thom in a news release. “Thanks to your help and the support of our partnering agencies we were able to arrest and charge this individual.”
According to the NWPD, soon after releasing the alleged suspect’s photo, a member of the public reached out to major crime unit and criminal intelligence unit investigators with helpful information that led to the arrest of the suspect. With the assistance of NWPD patrol officers, the crime reduction unit, street crime unit, and the gang suppression unit, a suspect was located and taken into custody without incident.
In an earlier press release, police said a woman called 911 about noon on Monday, Sept. 12 saying she had been assault near the 700 block of 22nd Street.
“The caller shared that a man had approached her and made sexualized comments before he assaulted her, knocked her to the ground, and kicked her,” said the press release. “He then produced an item believed to be a knife and further threatened her.”
Mounib Bouazza, a 31-year-old Surrey resident, has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of assault.
Anyone who witnessed this assault and has yet to speak to officers about what they saw is asked to call 604-525-5411 and reference file number 22-13838.
