I’m feeling like a regular muckraker right about now, although Gothamist et al would have realized soon enough that the NYPD wasn’t exactly quick off the mark on our roving rapist manhunt.
I’ve actually been meaning to blog about this for a while and then kind of forgot about it until I saw that the cops had fanned out all over the airwaves and NYC blogosphere yesterday.
Yes, per Park Slope Patch on April 26,
More than a month after a horrifying rape attempt took place on 16th Street, outraged residents of the block say cops did little to investigate the crime.
“The day of the attack, police left as quick as they came,” said Donald Harrington, 44, a 16th Street resident who witnessed the attack from his second floor window and ran out after the would-be rapist. “Then the police didn’t show up until the press came, a month later.”
“I’m not at all happy with the way police handled this,” added neighbor Jim Gallagher, 52. “This guy is still walking around out there.”
A video of attack — which took place on March 20 at 11:30 p.m. between Fourth and Fifth avenues — became widely circulated last week, after a neighbor shared a video of the incident taken by a stationary security camera on his house.
So, yeah, in mid MARCH, a harrowing video captured the attempted rape of a woman on 16th Street in Park Slope. But nobody heard about it until mid APRIL, when it finally came to light after outraged residents of the block went to the press. And the police didn’t do anything about it until NOW.
Great job, Brownie.
Until a year or so ago, I actually thought that the Brooklyn criminal justice system functioned along the lines of Law and Order repeats, which accounted for the sum total of my exposure until that point. I so wish I could tell you how I come by my up-close knowledge of just how unbelievably screwed up the system is round here but let’s just say, nobody in my family has a criminal or an arrest record ANYMORE.
My takeaway: you actually can get arrested and prosecuted for serious crimes without any investigation or evidence whatsoever before or during and a mountain to show the allegations to be complete and utter bullshit. Something is very, very wrong at the local precincts and the Brooklyn DA’s office. They are fucking morons too.
Besides, apparently when there IS evidence (like say, a surveillance video of your rapist), the police will ignore it anyway. Until the press tells them they shouldn’t do that. And NOW, Ray Kelly and Internal Affairs are going to look into whether the officers who ignored that tape did wrong.
So, my faith is in short supply and yours should be too. As my Sicilian grandpa used to say, “watch where you putta yo feet.”
