CBS2 is reporting a midnight rape on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning along trendy Melrose Avenue — but as of this morning, the LAPD is withholding details.

The police department's media-relations office says it's waiting on information from the Robbery-Homicide Division, who's in charge of the investigation. And, although Detective Menifee in Robbery-Homicide does confirm that a rape occurred along Melrose around that time, she tells LA Weekly that the sex attack…

… is in its “first stages of investigation,” so she can't currently discuss it.

Here's what CBS2 knows: While walking home from the Darkroom, an overpriced dive bar along the main drag, a woman was “attacked and raped in an alley” by an unidentified male.

The Darkroom is housed in a cute graffiti-covered building near a bunch of other clothes stores and places to eat on Melrose.


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However, as in most of Los Angeles, there are plenty of dark alleys running behind the businesses for loading trucks, parking, taking shortcuts, etc.

Although CBS2 reports that the LAPD “has issued a predator alert after a woman was sexually assaulted early Wednesday morning,” Detective Menifee says that “we haven't done that yet.”

City Hall activist John Walsh sent us one of his regular email rants this morning about how the Melrose rape is only getting attention because of its upscale location. “Now that a white woman has been attacked, will the politicians, media and law enforcement take notice and initiate a special action to combat the growing L.A. rape surge?” he asks.

Walsh has been alleging on his blog, HollywoodHighlands.org, that multiple minority women have been raped along crummy Hollywood Boulevard in recent months. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said he knew nothing about it in a radio interview.

And today, Detective Menifee tells the Weekly that “we don't have an alert over here” for an increase in sexual assaults in any certain area of Los Angeles.

Here's the CBS2 video report from this morning:

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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