A 13-year-old boy was brutally raped in the stairwell of a dilapidated housing project named after liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Police said that the boy was sexually assaulted by a man as the boy was taking garbage out on Wednesday at about 11 p.m. The boy said the man put his hand over the boy’s mouth and raped him.
‘Anybody can come in here. They need more security here.’
The man also stole the child’s phone, which he dropped later and police collected as evidence.
Residents of the Bronx area housing project said it suffers from neglect, some of which may have contributed to the conditions that led to the horrific attack.
They said that none of the garbage chutes worked in the building, so that residents had to take out their garbage, just as the child was doing when he was allegedly assaulted.
They also complained about the lack of security, including doors that don’t lock.
“To me that’s shocking. I mean, it’s crazy,” said one resident to WCBS-TV. “Anybody can come in here. They need more security here.”
They also don’t have security cameras, which could have helped identify the suspect.
“These buildings should have cameras already. I don’t know why they don’t,” said a different resident. “If we could get some cameras in here, that would help tremendously.”
A New York City Housing Authority spokesperson said only that resident safety was a “priority” and that they were investigating the complaints.
Police described the suspect as a bearded, bald, dark-skinned black man standing about 5’10,” aged between 30 and 40 years, wearing black jeans and a gray tank top.
The housing project was renamed after Sotomayor in 2010 owing to the fact that she had spent some time living in the project as a child. Prior to that, it was called Bronxdale. She lived there between 1957 until 1969.
A video news report from WCBS-TV can be viewed on YouTube.
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