A 32-year-old ex-convict was arrested for the random assaults on two women in downtown Nashville, striking fear into the area's vibrant daytime scene. The suspect, identified as Jacob Harrison Thompson, faces charges of aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated rape, and attempted rape following these incidents, which occurred within an hour of each other yesterday afternoon. In what served as a grim reminder of vulnerabilities that persist in urban spaces, Thompson's alleged assault spree began shortly after three at a downtown parking spot. It concluded within the confines of a public restroom.
According to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, the first attack took place when a 29-year-old woman, who had just finished her workday, returned to her car and encountered Thompson. The confrontation escalated rapidly as he attempted to force her into a sexual act, and in her desperation to escape, she collided her vehicle with another. The woman's flight, pursued unrelentingly by Thompson, ended when an alert witness intervened and Thompson ultimately fled the scene, the chain of events triggers alarm and law enforcement's immediate interest.
Thompson's alleged reckless pursuit of violence continued when he targeted a second victim, a 30-year-old woman inside a restroom at the Fifth and Broadway complex. Trailing her as she exited a stall, Thompson is accused of aggressively attacking her, pounding her head into a wall, and attempting to remove her pants, as the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department detailed. Her screams summoned the intervention of security staff and her husband. They fought to stop the assault as Thompson again took flight, cascading down an escalator with security in hot pursuit until his apprehension by Central Precinct officers.
Listed as homeless in police records, Thompson had previously navigated the justice system, receiving a five-year sentence in 2010 for aggravated burglary and a subsequent sixteen years for especially aggravated robbery in 2011. History thus folds back unto itself with Thompson now held on a $650,000 bond for the new charges, his narrative one of recurring intersection with the legal boundaries of society's writ.
