Madison woman intervenes to stop sexual assault of neighbor

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - An 18-year-old Madison woman intervened when her neighbor was screaming for help around midnight on Tuesday on the east side of the city.

Jade Petrowski-Busse said she is in the physical and emotional process of healing after helping her neighbor survive what the Madison Police Departments is calling a stranger sexual assault.

”I have had times living here where we’ve been walking home late at night and we’ve had to look around because it sounds like there are people following us,” Petrowski-Busse said. “But we can never see anybody.”

At 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday was a different story.

”I came outside I heard a girl screaming like bloody murder,” Petrowski-Busse said.

MPD Lt. Jason Ostrenga said Petrowski-Busse saved her neighbor.

”She’s a hero,” Lt. Ostrenga said. “She didn’t just sit back. She went down and stopped what was going on.”

She said she yelled at the suspect and tried to pull him off of a woman laying on the ground at a Brandie Road apartment building foyer.

She and Lt. Ostrenga said the suspect went after her.

”The suspect actually slammed her down battered her,” he said. “She has pretty significant bruising on the side of her face. He knocked her phone out and she tried to grab him and then he took off running.”

”He collided chest to chest and then I tried to grab him and he started punching me in the left side of my head and I let him go,” Petrowski-Busse said. “He saw that I had a phone in my hand that I was trying to call the cops with and smacked it out of my hand then took off running.”

She ran toward the danger, instead of away from it, because she would want a neighbor to do the same thing for her.

“I just know that if I was screaming and stuff like that I would want somebody to help me,” Petrowski-Busse said. “It doesn’t matter if I’m younger, or if this thing could’ve escalated. For the victim it’s good to know that somebody is there and somebody cares.”

Police have not made an arrest in this case.

Lt. Ostrenga said they worked with a sketch artist to create a visual of the suspect. Police described the suspect as a Black man in his 20′s with a slender build.

Anyone for information is asked to call the Madison Area Crime Stoppers at 608-266-6014.

Lt. Ostrenga said people living near Brandie Rd. should stay aware and cautious of their surroundings.