Authorities search for missing California woman amid campus attacks

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities were searching on Tuesday for a 22-year-old woman reported missing near a Southern California university, saying concerns for her well-being were heightened by a string of recent campus crimes that included an attempted kidnapping. Sahray Astina Barber was last seen after leaving her apartment across the street from Cal State San Bernardino at about 6 a.m. on her way to work on another school campus, according to police, but she never arrived at her job. San Bernardino is about 60 miles east of Los Angeles in Southern California's so-called Inland Empire. Barber's laptop and some other personal items were found in bushes near the gate of her apartment complex, said San Bernardino Police spokesman Lieutenant Richard Lawhead, raising suspicions among detectives, although it did not appear that there had been a struggle at the scene. Lawhead said investigators, who were studying the computer and Barber's recent text messages for clues to her whereabouts, were also concerned because of several recent attacks on women on the Cal State San Bernardino campus. "Cal State San Bernardino had a couple incidents recently, including an attempted kidnapping," he said, although Barber was not a student at the school and her disappearance had not been linked to those incidents. The San Bernardino Sun newspaper reported that on Sunday a woman leaving the campus library was grabbed from behind by a man who told her that he planned to take her to his car, but managed to fight off her assailant. The paper said another woman was attacked in a library stairwell a few days earlier but was also able to get away. The university's president, Tomas Morales, said in a message to students and staff posted on the CSUSB website that campus police staffing had been doubled in light of recent events. "Over the last two weeks, CSUSB has experienced an unprecedented number of crimes on campus," Morales said. "This is incredibly disturbing, as this university has long been a model for campus safety, including being ranked amongst the safest campuses in California." (Editing by Eric Walsh)