A clerk at a Brooklyn area bodega where the distraught father of a 18-year-old rape victim sought help said the man was too drunk to speak coherently.
The clerk said the father was drunk and “swayed from side to side” when he asked to use the phone. The clerk said he refused the man’s request because he didn’t understand him.
The father and daughter were drinking beer near the handball court at a Brownsville playground at 9:00 p.m. Thursday when 5 teens approached. One of the thugs pulled a gun and ordered the father to “get the f*** out of here.”
“One of them put a gun in my face, telling me to run, and all of them had their way with her,” the father told WABC.
“If I would have stood there and fought them (I would have died),” he said. “Because they meant business. They weren’t playing around.”
The father said he asked pedestrians for help but no one would call 911. He said he ran to a nearby bodega and asked to use the phone.
“‘I need help, call the cops, my daughter is getting raped. They didn’t want to call the cops for me,” the father told Eyewitness News 7
Surveillance video shows the father asking a customer to use his cell phone. The customer handed over his phone but snatched it back because the father was too drunk.
The father flagged down a patrol car outside the bodega but the thugs were gone by the time they returned to the park 15 minutes later.
The victim was treated at a local hospital for cuts and bruises on her arms, legs and knees. She said she screamed for help and was scared when her father left her.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she told police, according to CNN. “I was in panic mode.”
Parents of two of the suspects, ages 14 and 15, turned them into police on Sunday.
Police later arrested 2 more teens. A fifth suspect is still at large.
Police retrieved the video footage from the bodega — the same store where the father ran for help. The clerk said he recognized the boys from the neighborhood. They often stole snacks from the store shelves.
“They’re bad boys,” he told WABC.
