BLACKSBURG — Gripping a broom stick with an 8-inch blade duct-taped to the end, Selena Kassab cuts a distinctly Lara Croft image.

And the willowy 31-year-old’s pursuit in fuzzy pink slippers of a Peeping Tom on July 21 led police to the arrest of a Blacksburg man Wednesday evening.

Police spokesman Bruce Bradbery said officers planned to charge Ernest Thomas Hamilton, 35, with misdemeanor peeping into an occupied dwelling.

Kassab, an artist from Los Angles, who is staying in Blacksburg for the summer, last week noticed a man looking at her through her window.

“I was looking in the mirror and I saw a reflection of him behind me. I turned around and there he stood at the window. He didn’t even move,” she said on Wednesday, surrounded by other women who live in Little River Apartments, a brick complex of around 30 apartments

Armed with only a cell phone, Kassab ran outside, dialed 911 and chased the man down South Main Street until he got away.

What would have she done if she had caught him?

“I really can’t say. I would have fought with everything I have and tried to take him down,” she said.

Blacksburg Police crime report data shows that officers have been dispatched on more than 50 Peeping Tom calls since August 2004, Bradbery said. Many of these calls likely stemmed from the foot traffic that is routine in a college town, he said.

This most recent Peeping Tom scare comes at a time when the town is particularly concerned about sexual assault and the targeting of women.

Police have yet to make an arrest in the case of two attempted sexual assaults of women in their Blacksburg apartment buildings in late June and early July.

Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

After a man looked through her window, Selena Kassab (left) armed herself with a spear made from an 8-inch knife duct-taped to a broom handle. Chyanne Dayton (center) and Dianne Hall armed themselves with mace and golf clubs. Police have arrested a suspect, and though they advise people not to chase suspects themselves, these women say they're ready.

But Bradbery said the description of the man Kassab and other women saw does not match the description of the man in the other incidents. That man was described as a white man of a medium to heavy build with shoulder-length hair.

The best description of the man who looked in Kassab’s window is a drawing that Kassab, an animation student at the California Institute of the Arts, made that night.

The sketch, which Kassab colored in Photoshop, shows a man in his mid 20s with gel-spiked hair and bulging light-blue eyes.

The sketch is an accurate description of Hamilton, Bradbery said.

Drawn in the manner of an artistic court sketch, the image hung in most windows at Little River Apartments Wednesday and also in some downtown bars.

Bradbery would not comment on the specifics of the investigation that led to Hamilton’s arrest.

Bradbery said police appreciate the efforts of Kassab in making a drawing and posting it around town. But he said victims should not follow her lead and chase Peeping Toms.

“How do you know he is just a Peeping Tom and not another kind of sexual predator? Call the police,” he said.

Bradbery also said Kassab’s poster could have created unnecessary fear since it said the man targets women, but does not say how.

“Is he a rapist, a burglar, a Peeping Tom? It needs to be defined,” he said.

Kassab is not the only woman at the apartment complex who has seen the Peeping Tom. Just minutes before the man was seen at her window, a man was caught looking into the first floor window of 28-year-old Chyanne Dayton.

A third woman, Dianne Hall, 38, was leaving her third-floor apartment to do wash when she saw a man gazing into the room where Dayton lay watching television.

When Hall startled the man, he tried to act casual, as if he was not doing anything wrong, she said. He looked at Hall and nodded. From the encounter, Hall most remembers his eyes.

“His eyes, they were wide and bulging,” Hall said.

After the incident, the women at Little River Apartments joined together to stand up against their fear of the man they believe targeted their building for several weeks.

The traded phone numbers, and stocked golf clubs and other weapons behind their doors. Kassab built her bladed broomstick. One of their fathers sent several women bottles of pepper spray. Kassab carries her’s on her hip, next to her cell phone.

Dayton covered her windows with beach towels and has the police department’s number programmed in her phone.

“It’s very creepy,” she said Wednesday before Hamilton’s arrest. “I feel vulnerable and I have never felt vulnerable living here,” she said.

Cary Hopper, the apartment complex’s owner, said Wednesday that he will supply Dayton with blinds. He also said he installed lighting this week to brighten up dark areas of the lawn.

In other parts of the apartment complex, woman are doing what they can to create a safe environment.

For Joanne Davis, 27, the fierce growl of her 53-pound German shepherd mix puts her mind at ease. For Valerie Weeks, 24, it’s a expandable metal “beat stick” she keeps in her bag.

She tugged the weapon out to its full length. “I could use it if I had to protect myself,” she said.