Posted on 07/19/2004 1:13:22 PM PDT by ijcr
A British student who was sexually assaulted by a gang in New York and then ignored by police when she begged for help has received £80,000 in compensation.
The 22-year-old accepted the out-of-court settlement even though she could have received millions if she had taken the case to a jury.
The woman was attacked near the gates of Central Park by about 15 men after the Puerto Rican Day Parade in June 2000.
She was among dozens of women who were attacked by roving gangs during the day, suffering the worst assault. Many of the victims were doused with water, groped and stripped and some attacks were videotaped.
Her lawyer in New Jersey, Nicholas Sekas, confirmed that his client had accepted the £80,000 payout.
"She has suffered for over four years from this brutal attack that occurred in Central Park, while on holiday with friends," he said.
He added that she suffered "tremendous emotional and psychological damage" as a result of the brutal attack, which lasted half an hour.
The victim told a court hearing in Manhattan in March 2001 that she and her two friends had gone to the parade while on holiday in the city because it had been billed as a "good family outing".
When she saw gangs of men attacking women, she and her friends hid behind trees but were were spotted and tried to flee. She was surrounded and assaulted before being rescued by a large man who pulled her to safety.
The student's ordeal was compounded when her pleas for help went ignored. She said her friends begged for help from a police officer 75ft away from the attack but the officer said he "could not leave his post".
She then ran semi-naked towards at least two other officers begging for help, but was ignored. About 11 police officers and three emergency workers were disciplined following the parade.
Sources close to the legal cases have suggested police were ordered to take a "softly softly" approach to Puerto Rican revellers during the parade, for fears of being branded racist.
About £250,000 has been paid to the alleged victims while about 18 men were convicted following the violence, including five whom the British victim gave evidence against.
Notice that this account does not even address thate fact that the 15 punks were never found or held accountable, the author does not even consider them to be of any concern to the story.
So what did they do to the perpetrators??? Anything short of hanging them by their testicles and beating them is insufficient...
If she'd gone to court she'd've gotten zip - numerous precedents say that the police have no duty to protect any individual. Of course, in NYC it's almost impossible to legally carry a handgun, so those individuals are perfectly safe. < /sarcasm>
When I read the headline, I was afraid it was the perpetrator who won the £80,000. Too bad she was't allowed to carry a gun.
Well, any attempt to hold them accountable would be derided as racist and xenophobic.
After all, it was the horrible conditions in Imperialist America that determined their behavior.
This is the legacy of political correctness. And instead of catching and prosecuting the attackers AS WELL AS charging the police leadership with criminal negligence for their political policies, we the taxpayers are the ones punished by being forced to pay restitution to the victims.
Nothing can mitigate the harm they did to the innocent victims, their own reputation or the reputation of the police officers who stood by and did nothing.
They all went to jail for 1-3 years. The women who won the settlement identified five of them in court. I think a total of forty or fifty guys got a good stretch in the can. A few may have escaped, but not as many as you think. Once the police woke up, they acted aggressively.
Ahh yes. The Puerto Rican parade. My favorite march in NYC.
/s
Good glad she won.
When I was in NYC, I ended up in Greenwich village when Wigstock was going on!
No fear of me getting attacked though.
Unless a beaded handbag went out of control! ;-)
I trust that she's telling the truth. The new-age mentality of 'law enforcement' is to do nothing until backup arrives and "the peremiter is secure". How long did a small army of police mill around Columbine before going in to help anyone? This is their new training, don't do anything util everything is secure. If they're so worried about their own safety then why not procure a more appropriate job, like Librarian?
LOL
LOL
Librarian??? then you need to worry about your toes being sucked!
As I recall, a mighty scowling slap on the wrists were applied.
Exactimiento. The city could have gotten a summary dismissal. That they did not, may come back to haunt them. The claim that the polaintifdfs wcould have gotten millions form a jury verdict, is just one example of his/her/its incompetence.
Sources close to the legal cases have suggested police were ordered to take a "softly softly" approach to Puerto Rican revellers during the parade, for fears of being branded racist.
Here, the reporer tries to sound like he/she/it has access to deep "sources," when anyone who read newspaper reports from the time knows that dozens of cops told the Daily News and the Post that they were ordered not to do their jobs as regards blacks and Hispanics.
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