01/02/2002 Most of the bizarre assaults happened only a few blocks from Friend Laurie's house. A blonde man with a handlebar mustache was grabbing women from behind and chopping off their hair. Police had issued a televised warning to women with long hair — it lead all the local newscasts and made the CNN crawl, right in there with the Taliban regroup rumors. I started to tuck the 6-year pony tail into the turned up collar of my coat when I went to Laurie's or when I shopped at The People's Ralph's down on Redondo and Anaheim.

Now, police are telling long-haired Long Beach women to "rest easy." Yesterday, they shot at the guy — caught in the act, he had dropped his victim's hair in the street, jumped in his Buick and tried to run down the cop. Today they arrested him in a low-rent apartment complex downtown. A woman interviewed on kabc-tv said she knows money was not the motive. She said she once had a "hair-relationship" with the suspect and that he "turned to hair" to reduce stress after his business went under.