Police arrest violent predator they say sexually assaulted 14 prostitutes

(FOX 11) - A violent predator is now behind bars according to LAPD detectives.

They say Ferdinand Flowers sexually assaulted at least 14 L.A area prostitutes using a black Dodge Ram pick-up with discoloration in the front, and two white cars, a Chevy Cobalt and a Honda Civic - that's the car police caught him in last week.

"We found he tended to commit the crimes on similar days around similar times so we deployed surveillance personal in that area in hopes we would catch him one of those days and we were fortunate enough that he came into that area," said William Hayes with the Robbery Homicide Division LAPD.

Police mapped out exactly where the 35-year-old from Long Beach picked up prostitutes ranging in ages from 15 to 35 over the course of three years.

Those places included Los Angeles, Compton and the greater LA area.

"What he would do is contact young women that were involved in prostitution activity - cajole them into the vehicle in the indication that he would engage in prostitution activity with them for money and at some point in time he would display a handgun and then take them at gunpoint after restraining them to an industrial area that we talked about in the Dominguez Hills area and he would sexually assault them there," said Hayes.

Detectives say when they arrested him, they also found the weapon he used to threaten the women.

"He does have an armed guard card and a security guard license in the state. As we said, the weapon we recovered the 40 mm handgun is registered to him and he was probably using that in some of the securities," said Hayes.

Detectives did not want us to show the suspect's photo, because they think there may be more victims who could potentially identify him and help build their case.

They don't want to interfere with that process.