Two women who say that a masturbating man has twice followed them in Southeast Portland are fighting back, according to a report from KATU News.

The women, Bella Castellino and Savanna Wonderwheel, said that they were walking home from Baby Doll Pizza Saturday night around 10 p.m. and were about a half a mile away when they noticed a man "hovering around trying to kill time for us to get near him," according to Wonderwheel.

The women described him as a man around 5 feet 11 inches wearing a hoodie.

"We could see that his hands were clearly in his pants," Castellino told KATU.

The women called the police, who confirmed to KATU that a call of a man masturbating in public on Southeast 28th Avenue near Salmon Street came in Saturday night.

Castellino and Wonderwheel are sure this same man has targeted them before, in January of 2017 after they left The Goodfoot, also later in the evening.

"We heard heavy breathing behind us and turned around and there he was -- penis out," Wonderwheel told KATU. "Same thing, baggy sweatshirt, stooped over."

The women think they may not be the man's only targets and so Castellino created posters and handed them out throughout the neighborhood with the headline: "Serial Creep in our Neighborhood."

"I just wrote it as a letter to our neighborhood to let them know what was going on," Castellino told KATU. "I'm hopeful he'll see this and know that we're watching."

Sgt. Chris Burley, spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau told KATU that anyone who has experienced something similar to contact the police, even if the incident happened months ago.

Burley told KATU that the serial masturbating could escalate to "maybe something more serious as actual contact with another person."

He suggested people travel in groups, stay alert and have phones ready to call 911.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker