Crime & Safety

Internal Affairs Investigating Cop Response to 16th St. Sexual Assault

Police are questioning whether officers handled a rape attempt appropriately.

Months after neighbors caught a brutal 16th Street rape attempt on camera, NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is now investigating the local police response to the incident.

The investigation comes after of William Giraldo, 24, a Bensonhurst man suspected in the March rape attempt, as well as a June 4 rape and two other rape attempts in Sunset Park and Bay Ridge.

After the March 20 attack in Park Slope, that police had initially ignored the vivid video of the attack.

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“The day of the attack, police left as quick as they came. Then the police didn’t show up until the press came, a month later,” Donald Harrington, 44, a 16th Street resident, told Patch shortly after the incident. Harrington witnessed the attack from his second floor window and ran out after the would-be rapist.

When police failed to return to the neighbor for the video, the neighbor passed it on to various news outlets. When the victim did eventually call 911, officers recorded her complaint and description of the attacker. Nearly two weeks later, police obtained the surveillance video after it appeared in the news.

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Several neighbors have questioned whether the attack was handled appropriately, and now police say the officers’ actions are being investigated.

NYPD Spokesperson Paul Browne said in a statement that the officers should have at least notified detectives working on the case about the video.

“While it may have been reasonable for officers to continue canvas in the immediate aftermath of the attempted rape and respond first to the victim when she called 911 before trying to download the citizen's video without the immediate expertise on hand and risk erasing it, IAB is nonetheless investigating why the officers didn't soon thereafter tell detectives or our TARU video experts to return and get the video,” said Browne in a statement.

Giraldo actually turned himself after seeing a surveillance video of himself circulated by the NYPD, but claims to have had nothing to do with the crimes. He was charged after being picked out of a lineup by the victim of a June 4 rape in Sunset Park, but he has not been charged in connection with the other three attempted rapes.


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