This story was the published headline on the internet news publication OffThePress.com on November 3, 2022 and was the motivation for my business www.NonLethalSelfprotection.com. The headline linked to a story from the New York Post. It's a horrifying story that occurs everyday in America and happening with more frequency in cities and towns everywhere. Here I will post the story In hopes the reader will take it to heart and no longer ignore the dangers around us while something as simple as a $10.00 canister of pepper spray may very well have prevented this horrific crime from happening to this 43-year-old woman. Here's the story.
A woman out for a run in the West Village was raped, choked and robbed Thursday morning by a stranger who left her bleeding on the path before taking off on a Citi Bike after the harrowing attack.The 43-year-old woman was running around 5:30 a.m. along Pier 45, near West and Christopher streets, when a man grabbed her from behind and choked her until she lost consciousness, police said. The fiend then knocked her to the ground, took off her clothing and raped her, cops said.
He grabbed the woman’s wallet, debit card, cellphone and headphones before taking off on a Citi Bike, leaving her shoeless and with blood running from her face and elbows, cops, law enforcement sources and a witness said. “She was in workout clothes but they were kind of torn up, they were dirty, she wasn’t wearing any shoes, she was just wearing one sock,” said Gabrielle Sumkin, who was out for a run when she came across the disheveled woman standing on the path.“She was like holding her eye … This woman seemed like she was legitimately very hurt and it was clear that something had happened to her,” the Greenwich Village resident said. Sumkin, 23, said she “approached her slowly and I asked her if she was OK.” “She was just kind of saying ‘I need help, I need help,’” the good Samaritan told The Post by phone.
“She had like clearly been through physical trauma.”Sumkin sat the woman down at some nearby stairs and asked if there was anyone she could call for her. She noticed the woman was wearing a diamond wedding ring and a necklace, so she wasn’t sure if she’d been robbed or attacked. “She was very despondent, she couldn’t even really say anything, she couldn’t even think of anyone off the top of her head obviously that she’d want me to call,” Sumkin recalled.
“I didn’t want to ask her about what happened so I was just kind of asking, ‘What can I do? I can call someone,’ so I didn’t really ask her, she was just kind of saying, ‘I need help,’ like repeatedly.” Sumkin, who works in human resources, called 911 and stayed with the woman until emergency responders arrived about 15 to 20 minutes later. “Nobody even looked in our direction, which was a bit strange. No one else I think would’ve helped her, which was really unfortunate also. I would’ve liked to see a bit more of a collective effort there from the other runners, there were a bunch of them.”
While the two were waiting for the ambulance, the victim was asking where the first responders were because it was taking so long for them to arrive, Sumkin said. "She would hear other sirens around that weren’t coming for us, that were going somewhere else, and I was like about to call them again,” Sumkin said. Once the ambulance arrived, the victim was transported to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she’s in stable condition and was able to give officers details on the attack.
The suspect was last seen wearing black pants and a burgundy sweater emblazoned with the letters “UNH” in white, law enforcement sources said. He had on a yellow, beanie-type hat with a black rim and was carrying a blue jacket in a black bag in the basket of the Citi Bike, the sources said. Cops later took a 29-year-old homeless man into custody in connection with the incident after he used stolen credit cards at a Target in Midtown. He has yet to be charged.
The incident comes just over a month after a 35-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and robbed at knifepoint while jogging at Fort Tryon Park in Inwood. Kenneth Miller, 31, was arrested in connection with that incident, police said.
Another jogger was sexually assaulted in late March on the Hudson River Greenway at Pier 40 near West and Clarkson streets, police said.
Rapes citywide are up nearly 16% so far this year compared to this time period last year, NYPD data show. In the Sixth Precinct, where the attack happened, rapes are up 22%, data show. “It’s terrifying. It’s the worst possible fear I have,” said a 35-year-old Midtown resident out for a run near the scene of the rape later Thursday. “You generally feel like at 6am it would be a safe time to be out here… I’m ready to get out right now.” Dog walker Elizabeth Merced, 50, said “anywhere” she goes, she’s “afraid.”
