STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A distraught teen frantically ran into a Brighton Heights deli looking for help after she was allegedly attacked early Tuesday morning.

"She was so shaken up, she couldn't speak," said deli worker Nicholas Aguilar. "She was very, very scared."

Aguilar said the girl, who was about 14 years old, came into the Castleton Avenue shop at around 6:30 a.m., about a half hour after he opened the store.

She had a big red scratch on the side of her face and her hair was messy, he said.

The girl ran into the corner of the store and asked to use the phone, and called her father and 911, the worker said.

"She said, 'Somebody tried to rape me,'" Aguilar said. "She was crying a lot. I was just trying to get her to relax."

BREAKING: Sexual predator at large; 4 women almost raped in Randall Manor/Brighton Heights, police say Posted by Staten Island Advance on Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Aguilar said he then went outside to see if he saw anyone, but didn't see anything.

A few minutes later, the girl's father arrived shortly before the cops and an ambulance responded to the scene near Morris Intermediate School (I.S. 61).

Police said the attacker forced the girl to perform a sexual act on him.

An NYPD mobile command center was stationed in front of the school Tuesday afternoon, and a number of police officers were still at the scene.

Police are searching for a man in connection with four incidents of attempted rape on women in Tompkinsville, Randall Manor and Brighton Heights early Tuesday morning, police said.

The victims were accosted in the span of an hour, beginning at approximately 5:45 a.m., according to police.

Their ages ranged from 14 to 64 and they were strangers to the attacker.

A suspect in at least one incident told a victim "I'm going to rape you," according to an account by ABC7.

All of the victims suffered minor injuries as they managed to fend off their attacker, who fled the incidents in a black SUV before he could inflict serious injury, law enforcement sources told the Advance.

The suspect is described as a black male, approximately 5'8", with short spikey hair and was wearing black track suit with white stripes on his pants and a UNK logo on the front of his sweatshirt, police said.

The incidents, as laid out by police, are as follows:

At 5:46 a.m., a 50-year-old female was attacked on the 100 block of St. Paul's Avenue in Tompkinsville.

At 6:20 a.m., a 64-year-old woman was attacked at Henderson and Westbury avenues in Randall Manor.

At 6:28 a.m., a 42-year-old woman was attacked at Castleton Avenue and Hunter Place in Randall Manor.

And at 6:45 a.m., a 14-year-old was attacked at Castleton Avenue and Havenwood Avenue in Brighton Heights.

The woman attacked on St. Paul's Avenue was walking her dog when she was accosted, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. In that incident, the assailant attempted to pull off the victim's pants, according to CBS.

The three additional incidents occurred at bus stops.

A large number of cops remain in the area as a massive NYPD search for the suspect remains underway.

Several school in the area have been on lockdown for most of the day, including Morris Intermediate School (I.S. 61) at 445 Castleton Ave., where police cars were parked outside.

NYPD helicopters were seen flying over Allison Pond Park, Snug Harbor and the woods at Children's Aid Society at Goodhue Center in an apparent search for the suspect.