Sexual Assault in the Park Today

Livetotravel wrote: isn't this thread really about alleged rape?

Okay, an ALLEGED rape. Either way, I'm finding the flippant, jokey crap to be pretty inappropriate.

Breaking News
Suspect nabbed in park rapes

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, July 2nd 2007, 4:00 AM

Police have arrested a man they say is responsible for five sexual attacks over four years in city parks, including the rape of a 15-year-old girl.

Alvin Henry, 30, was arrested Sunday a few weeks after the gunpoint rape of a 34-year-old woman in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, police said. After that attack, investigators announced they had linked the incident to three others in Baisley Park and Roy Wilkins Park in Queens.

On Sunday night, authorities said they had also linked the man to the rape on April 27 of a 15-year-old girl, who was attacked at 9 p.m. on a Friday inside Prospect Park, near an entrance.

The Queens resident was arrested on charges of rape, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, police said. Information was not immediately available on whether he had a lawyer, and he did not have a listed phone number.

In Queens, Henry is accused in a rape and an attempted rape in the summer of 2003, as well as a rape on June 11 of this year, police said. The most recent Prospect Park incident occurred just four days later at around 1 a.m., when the woman was separated from a male companion by the attacker, police said.

Authorities said the three Queens attacks all occurred immediately after the victims left a male friend.

Wonderful news that they caught the s.o.b.

Sorry. Didn't see this was posted already, but great news

Turns out he's a former Olympian...

From today's Newsday

NEW YORK (AP) A former Olympic sprinter from the Caribbean confessed that he raped four women and a teenage girl over a four-year period after stalking them in the city's parks, authorities said Monday.

Alvin Henry, 30, a member of the 4x100 Trinidad and Tobago relay team in the 2000 Sydney Olympic games, was arrested Sunday near Prospect Park in Brooklyn by police who matched him to a composite sketch of the rape suspect.

Police said Henry attacked three women in Baisley Park and Roy Wilkins Park in Queens and two others in Prospect Park, including a 15-year-old girl in April.

In at least four of the attacks, police said, the women had been walking with men. When the men left, Henry pounced, police said.

The latest assault took place June 15 in Prospect Park, where police said Henry brandished a gun and raped a 34-year-old woman. After that attack, investigators were able to link the incident to others.

Henry, a Queens resident, was arrested on charges of rape, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, police said. He was being arraigned on Monday, and information about his lawyer wasn't immediately available.

Brian Lewis, secretary general of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee, confirmed the man police nabbed was the same Alvin Henry who had run for Trinidad and Tobago.

"There's no denying that," Lewis said, adding that Henry had represented the country in other races.

Lewis said he didn't know what Henry was doing in the United States.

"He stopped running a couple of years ago," Lewis said. "He just dropped off the scene."


Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

He is the pride of his country alright.

RBG wrote: My neighbor---a 30-something, blonde, white woman---went jogging last night in Prospect Park at about 9:00pm. It was just starting to get dark. She was wearing tight shorts, a bra top, and her Ipod. She took a few moments to stretch her legs on top of the fence outside our building. She'd heard nothing about the rapist in the Prospect Park and didn't seem to care. All I could think was, "You're really dumb." I talked to her about the rapist and told her to be careful, and off she went, jogging 'round Prospect Park in the middle of the night...Dummy....

F*K that.
Women are allowed to get their exercise after sundown, wearing their jogging clothes. There's loads of people jogging on the main road at that hour, which is not exactly the middle of the night. It's not so crazy or stupid.

RBG wrote: You're right--women are allowed to do whatever the want, when they want. But, its not exactly the smartest time to jog. Why wait to its dark to go running in the park??

9pm is just after sundown at this time of year. If it's a super hot day, it's less hideously hot a little later.
And some people work late.

This sounded like a crime of opportunity and it was unusual to me to hear that the woman was chased down, but now it makes sense that he was a runner. A former Olympian would be confident enough to sprint after his victim and know he would catch her. I'm glad he's caught.

anyway, it seems like this guy liked to target women who were with men -- which is exactly how we're told to be safe: find a nice man to walk you home.

i won't climb all the way on to my soapbox just now, but there's a great article in the current issue of Bitch about the image and reality of stranger-in-the-dark rapes.

sweet tea wrote: anyway, it seems like this guy liked to target women who were with men -- which is exactly how we're told to be safe: find a nice man to walk you home.

i won't climb all the way on to my soapbox just now, but there's a great article in the current issue of Bitch about the image and reality of stranger-in-the-dark rapes.

Yeaaaa, another Bitch reader! That was a great article and exactly what I thought about when I read RBG's post.