Surveillance image of the suspect
Police are on the lookout for a male suspect accused of attempting to rape a woman just steps from Gracie Mansion during the early hours of Saturday.
According to the NYPD, the attack occurred at 1:20 a.m. on East 90th St. near East End Ave. The suspect allegedly committed the assault, which involved forcefully touching her vagina, after shoving the victim to the ground; he fled the scene after she started screaming.
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“As I was making my way down the block, I saw this man just running up towards York. I tried to tell him to stop or ‘who are you,’ but he just kept running,” a nearby doorman who heard the victim’s cries told WABC. “I helped the little girl. She was down on the floor, bloody, crying and shocked.”
The victim, 19, went to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center on East 68th Street. The suspect ran westbound on East 90th St. toward York Ave. Officers from the 19th Precinct responded to the incident,
Police described him as a “a male with dark complexion and approximately 5′ feet 9″ inches tall. He was last seen wearing a dark colored shirt, blue jeans, and multicolored shoes.” It’s unknown if he’s a resident of the neighborhood or was merely passing by.
No arrests have been made as of writing.
As of January, New York State’s penal law expanded the definition of rape to include “nonconsensual vaginal, oral and anal sexual contact.”
The 19th Precinct is one of the safest in Manhattan. Overall crime is down 10.32 percent year-to-date through August 4, according to the most recent CompStat report. Seven rapes have been reported so far this year—identical to the same period last year—along with an 18.6 percent increase in other sex crimes that don’t include rape.
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Additionally, while July marked the seventh straight month that New York City saw an overall reduction in crime, according to statistics released by the NYPD last week, the the city recorded a 6.3 percent increase in rapes compared to the same time last year (135 in 2024, compared to 127 by July 2023).
Anyone with relevant information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website or by sending a direct message to @NYPDTips on Twitter. All calls are strictly confidential.
