Metro

Brave woman fights off would-be rapist

A young woman fought off a vicious stranger who tried to rape her while she walked her dog near Inwood Hill Park, police said.

The would-be rapist tried to grab the 30-year-old victim and rip off her clothes on the sidewalk near West 212th Street at 6:55 a.m. Sunday, cops said.

Dramatic surveillance video shows the suspect running up behind the victim and grabbing her. It also shows the victim fighting off her attacker, while the small but feisty pooch lunges on its leash toward the stranger.

The creep was scared off when the woman continued resisting and a car passed by, police sources said.

The suspect is believed to be in his late 20s, about 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds. He was wearing a white T-shirt, blue denim shorts and a brown or red baseball cap.

The attack was the latest in a series of crimes that have instilled fear in women in the uptown neighborhood.

Last year, a rookie cop admitted he grabbed a teacher in the same neighborhood and raped her at gunpoint in a nearby courtyard after he snatched her off the sidewalk on her way to work in the morning.

Residents are drawn to the area because of its beautiful parks, which include Inwood Hill, Fort Tryon and Isham Hill Park, but women in the community have complained about brazen daylight gropings and attacks over the past several years.