13-year-old sexually assaulted at knifepoint in Queens Park

A man with a “machete knife” forcibly drove a 13-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy into a wooded area of ​​a park in Queens on Thursday afternoon, where the girl was sexually abused, police said.

The schoolmates were walking in Kissena Park in Flushing when a man approached them around 3 p.m. and told them to follow him into the woods, police Criminal Investigation Division Chief Joseph Kenny said at a news conference Friday. When the children hesitated, the man showed the knife and told them to “shut up,” Chief Kenny said.

In a secluded area of ​​the 600-acre park, the suspect tied the children’s wrists with a shoelace before attacking the girl, Police Chief Kenny said.

Police described the suspect as a light-skinned man in his 20s with a “heavy Spanish accent,” braces and a tattoo of a red-eyed bull or other horned animal on the left side of his chest. He told the children to stay there for 20 minutes, then stole their phones and ran, Police Chief Kenny said.

Law enforcement did not say whether any of the children knew the attacker. On Friday morning, officers were searching the area for cameras and trying to identify the man. Police were offering a $10,000 reward for information.

At the press conference, department head Jeffrey Maddrey described the attack as “every parent’s nightmare.”

Such attacks by strangers are comparatively rare.

About 20 percent of rapes are committed by someone who is a stranger to the victim, according to an analysis by RAINN, the National Rape, Abuse and Incest Network. In cases of sexual violence, perpetrators usually know their victims. In about 93 percent of cases of sexual violence against youth reported to authorities, victims know the perpetrators, the network said.

This year, 694 rapes were reported to authorities in New York City through early June, up from 654 during the same period last year, police data show. About 30 percent of the victims were children. And in the 109th Precinct, which includes Kissena Park, 12 rapes have been reported so far this year, compared with 17 during the same period in 2023.

The park was quiet Friday morning except for the rumble of police cars waiting outside the gates at the corner of Colden Street and Juniper Avenue. Students waited outside the doors of Rachel Carson Intermediate School, a block and a half from where the girl was attacked.

While police helicopters and drones flew overhead, Maria Sivira picked up her daughter Samara Gonzalez from school.

Samara, who is in eighth grade, said she went to the park every day after school, but on Friday her mother decided to pick her up early and take her home because she was worried about her safety.

“She says it’s dangerous right now,” said Samara, who translated for her Spanish-speaking mother.

Ms Sivira added that she could not imagine how the parents of the attacked children felt.

“She’s afraid of being a mother,” Samara said.

Next to the park’s soccer field, 81-year-old Vilma Burke and her caregiver Shazia Salam sat on a bench. Ms. Salam, who does not live in the neighborhood but has a 14-year-old son, said the park is usually full of children. On Friday, it felt different, she said.

“I’m scared,” she said. “Something’s wrong here.”