Police are looking for a man who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl near a busy intersection about 1 p.m. Saturday.

“This is extremely disturbing to us for a number of reasons,” said Lincoln Police Officer Katie Flood on Monday. “It happened in broad daylight at one of the busiest intersections in Lincoln. It’s not like anything we’ve seen before, at least of late.”

The girl was walking along 27th Street about a block south of O Street en route to a friend’s house when a man she didn’t know approached and struck up a conversation, Flood said.

The girl told police she spoke with the man for a few minutes, then said she needed to leave. She said the man pulled her into a stairwell behind a closed office building at 140 S. 27th St. and assaulted her, threatening to hurt her if she screamed.

After the assault, the man told the girl to leave, and she went to her friend’s house, where she told an adult what happened, Flood said.

She last saw the man walking toward a gas station near 28th and O, Flood said.

Sexual assaults committed by a stranger are much less frequent than those committed by someone the victim knows, Flood said.

The last stranger sexual assault Flood could recall occurred last March, when a woman walking near Third and B was approached by an unknown man with a meat cleaver.

The man forced the woman into his SUV, and later assaulted her and left her in the country, Flood said. Oscar Gonzalez was arrested in May and remains in jail on suspicion of attacking the woman, Flood said.

More recently, on Feb. 10, a 22-year-old woman walking home from the university to the 2200 block of S Street at about 8 p.m. was grabbed by an unknown man. The woman, who was talking on her cell phone, screamed, and the man ran away.

Police said they don’t have reason to believe Saturday’s assault is related to any other recent cases.

Reach Hilary Kindschuh at hkindschuh@journalstar.com or 473-7120.