Person Of Interest In Custody In Connection To Brooklyn Sex Assaults
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A person of interest was in custody late Tuesday in connection to a trio of sexual assaults that occurred within two hours in Brooklyn.
As CBS2's Ali Bauman reported, police spent the better part of Tuesday morning searching for a man they said pulled a gun on three different women between 6:45 a.m. and 9 a.m. and allegedly sexually assaulted two of them.
Police finally took a 26-year-old man in a black mini-van matching a description into custody near John F. Kennedy International Airport, 1010 WINS' Al Jones reported. He was still being questioned late Tuesday night.
Police say a 20-year-old woman was raped just before 7 a.m. at Fountain and Stanley avenues in East New York, CBS2's Reena Roy reported. Police sources say a man flashed his gun and forced her behind a parked truck where he assaulted her.
Employees at a nearby bus company said the victim is a mother and was on her way to work when she was stopped by that man. She then ran into the company's office shaking and sobbing.
"She comes in hysterically crying, scared, nervous, shaking. We asked her, 'What's wrong?' She said the guy put a gun in the back of her head, told her to take out her ID, he then took a picture of her ID, told her take off your pants, take off your sneakers. He proceed to rape her. After he raped her he told her count up to 50. She counted up to 50 and he started running," one witness said.
"I heard the lady screaming, so I looked and I seen him come out and he went down and through the alley way," witness Lawrence More said.
"It's horrible, very horrible," another witness said.
Police sources said a 15-year-old girl was able to run off after someone tried to assault her at Sutter and Lincoln avenues.
80 minutes later, sources say the same man forced a 26-year-old woman to perform a sex act after about a half-mile away.
"Quiet person going to work, you know," the 26-year-old's neighbor Curtis John said. "To hear something like that happen to her is shocking."
"Quiet person going to work, you know," the 26-year-old's neighbor Curtis John said. "To hear something like that happen to her is shocking."
The person of interest remains in custody at the NYPD Special Victims Unit.