New Yorkers arrest alleged rapist of 13-year-old girl after he crawled under car ‘like a cat’

Residents of a New York City neighborhood are credited with arresting an Ecuadorian man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl. A police commissioner said the crime had “shocked our entire city.”

Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, 25, waited for his court date outside a delicatessen in Corona, Queens, after his arrest early Tuesday.

He was accused of raping a teenage girl in Kissena Park in Queens last Thursday after allegedly attacking the girl and a 13-year-old boy who was accompanying her with a knife.

Police officials said at a press conference that community members held Inga-Landi until police arrived, even though he resisted.

Joe Kenny, chief of criminal investigations for the New York Police Department, said residents of the block where the arrest took place made sure Inga-Landi had nowhere to go after he was discovered, and apparently even held his feet together with a belt.

Kenny said at least 10 people held him until police arrived.

Angela Sauretti, 23, said The Daily Beast that she spotted Inga-Landi, who was wearing a black hoodie, in the delicatessen and put him in a headlock as he tried to escape.

“He said, ‘Let me explain!’ I said, ‘There’s nothing to explain. You’re a rapist,'” she recalls.

Sauretti said Inga-Landi crawled under a car “like a cat,” but community members surrounded it to prevent his escape.

Commissioner Edward A. Caban of the New York Police Department said the rape “shocked our entire city.”

“Our city was united in seeking justice for the victim and her family,” he added.

Kenny said Inga-Landi confessed, saying he had a drug problem, that he had found the knife he used in the attack and that “this was the first time he had ever done anything like this.”

Kenny said the suspect also identified himself in a video that investigators showed him. He was charged with rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault causing serious injury, robbery, kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child, among other charges.

No lawyer was listed in court records as representing Inga-Landi. The Ecuadorian consulate did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Kenny said community members, including a landlord who remembered Inga-Landi trying to rent a room from him two weeks ago, provided “crucial information” as police flooded the area with detectives and circulated pictures and a video of the suspect on social media.

The public reaction was so strong even before the arrest that police knew Inga-Landi’s identity, had accessed his Facebook page and had a “spot-on” sketch as well as photos and a video, Kenny said.