Posted on 12/21/2002 1:12:47 AM PST by kattracks
On a desolate fringe of a Queens park, a gang of homeless men set upon a woman and dragged her into their squalid encampment, raping her for two hours while cops mounted a frantic search.The 42-year-old victim finally was rescued when a police dog picked up her scent, tracked her to the hobo jungle and sank his teeth into one of the men who brutalized her, authorities said.
"It is a horrendous crime," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as the five assailants were booked on kidnapping, robbery, rape and sodomy charges.
The attack occurred at 10 p.m. Thursday at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, on a deserted pedestrian path linking Shea Stadium and the National Tennis Center.
Sitting on a bench, the woman and a male friend were jumped by a band of what police called homeless Mexican immigrants who beat and robbed them.
The mob then grabbed the woman and pulled her down a flight of stairs leading to a Long Island Rail Road platform, across the tracks and deep into the woods.
Amid the thick brush, the men had put up several shacks patched together from wood, cardboard and plastic - described by one investigator as human "bird's nests."
The huts were filled with old mattresses and piles of garbage. They were so filthy that one cop said he planned to throw out his shoes after stepping inside.
In one of the ramshackle shelters - impossible to see from even a short distance - the men took turns beating and raping the woman.
Her friend had raced off, found a passerby with a cell phone and called police, who quickly swarmed the park.
For two hours, cops searched the sprawling grounds with dogs for a trace of the woman and her captors.
At one point, electricity on the LIRR tracks was shut off so cops could cross over into the thick brush on the other side.
'Dog went nuts'
As police closed in, two of the suspects, Victor Cruz, 22, and Jose Hernandez, 18, ran out of the woods and were captured.
A 10-year-old German shepherd named Sean and his handler, Officer Kim Flechaus, were the first to reach the shack where the victim was held.
"It was awful. We couldn't find her, and then the dog went nuts," one investigator said.
The bloodied woman, naked from the waist down, apparently heard the cops and bolted. She told them one of her attackers was still inside.
The dog was sent in, and he ripped into suspect Louis Carmona, 20, authorities said. After a brief standoff, the dog then pulled Carlos Rodriguez, 22, and Jesus Torres, 28, from a second shanty nearby.
"God bless Sean. He did a hell of a job," a police official said.
Three of the five suspects were treated at the hospital for dog bites.
When they were led out of the 110th Precinct stationhouse last night, they wore only hospital gowns because their clothes were seized for evidence. Shivering, they tried to cover their faces as they walked past.
The viciousness of the assault recalled the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, which ended with the convictions of five teens being tossed out Thursday. Convicted killer Matias Reyes confessed to the crime.
Another group attack
"This is eerily similar to the whole Central Park thing," an NYPD source said. "Everyone is crossing the T's and dotting the I's to make sure history does not repeat itself."
The gang rape also bore similarities to a group attack on a Brooklyn woman this month in Lincoln Terrace Park in Crown Heights. Those assailants are still at large.
In Flushing, Queens, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officer told the Daily News that homeless encampments near the unused LIRR tracks are a persistent problem.
Cops regularly sweep through and knock them down, only to see them rebuilt elsewhere.
Rapes in the 110th Precinct are down 23% this year from last year - and Kelly said it wasn't clear whether more security was needed.
"We're always evaluating that issue," he said.
The stench was probably from Bill Clinton himself and those might have been his or Roger's empty bottles.
I loved to hear those M-60's.
Or as one old VN vet said on FR:
"At least this time we won't have to go 6,000 miles to the war. We'll be able to walk there."
Drive the bus non-stop to the Mexican border, back up to the line, and use german shepherds to force them out the rear emergency exit.
Hope I don't need a walker to get there.
We old farts can use the term "old" amongst ourselves, but you youngsters should show some damned respect and use the term - "experienced"..
And yes, damn it - anyone under 55 is a youngster...
Don't ignore us in the local campaign to come...we can trump youth and vigor, with our acquired viciousness, cruelty and lack of compassion.....
Semper Fi
I would agree with you, they were soul warming machines....and it was especially mesmerizing to see the interlocking fields of fire from several M-60s at night across the clearings... They always reminded me of an angel's broom -- sweeping sinners away...
The downside of hearing them open up -- was the undeniable fact that some assholes were on the way, and they wanted to kill you!
Semper Fi
Thank you. Worth commiting to memory.
Semper Fi
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