A teenage girl in Brooklyn has filed a lawsuit against the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) and the City of New York after two cops allegedly raped her in the back of a police van following a drug-related arrest.
The two detectives involved did not deny having sex with the girl, but later claimed it was consensual.
Out of longstanding practice, the alleged rape victim is not being named. She released a statement via her attorney, which reads, in part:
I’m completely brutalized by the rape. My life is in shatters. Now every time I see any police, I’m in a panic.
According to a report in the New York Daily News, Brooklyn South Narcotics Detectives Edward Martins and Richard Hall were at Brighton Beach conducting a so-called “buy-bust operation” wherein police lawfully purchase drugs from someone and then arrest them for selling the police their requested drugs.
For some reason, the two detectives drove off in unmarked Dodge minivan during the operation and ended up at a nearby park, where they found the 18-year-old girl sitting in a car with two friends. The detectives then approached the car and arrested the girl after finding traces of marijuana and the anti-anxiety drug Klonopin in a bag nearby.
The detectives drove off in the unmarked van again, telling the girl’s friends they were taking her to the 60th Precinct on Coney Island for processing. That never happened. Instead, the cops took the girl to a Chipotle parking lot two blocks away from the precinct, according to a report by DNAinfo‘s Noah Hurowitz. There, the girl was apparently forced to perform a sex act on both of the NYPD detectives. Then, one of the cops allegedly raped her.
After they were done with her, the cops forced her out of the van and drove off–roughly 45 minutes after taking the girl into custody, according to her attorney.
The alleged rape victim was later found by a friend who had traveled to the 60th Precinct to look for her. He said, “She was like ‘They just fucked me,’ I couldn’t have done anything but it was definitely just one of those damn moments.”
Claims of the alleged consensual nature of the sex have outraged the girl’s attorney, Michael David, who said:
She’s a teenager and she was basically kidnapped into a police vehicle without any justification. She had her handcuffs on when they raped her. There was zero consent. The cops were over 6 feet tall. She’s very petite, like 5-2 and maybe 100 pounds. There’s nothing she could do.
After being taken to her parents, she was immediately rushed to a hospital, where doctors found evidence of sexual assault, according to David.
Detectives Martins and Hall have been stripped of their badges and guns, and placed on modified duty, pending an investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, according to multiple media outlets. Their supervisor, Sgt. John Espey has also been placed on desk duty for failing to properly supervise his underlings.
Detectives Endowment Association president Michael Palladino refused to comment, saying, “It would be inappropriate for me to comment because there is an active investigation going on.”
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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