The NYPD is offering a $10,000 reward for the capture of the “animal” who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl in broad daylight at a Queens park — as they revealed disturbing new details of the horrific attack.
Cops are scouring surveillance video footage around Kissena Park for clues to the Thursday afternoon attack, and deploying a massive police presence to catch the creep, calling it an “all hands on” response.
“As a father, [a] member of this department for many years, this incident is a parent’s worst nightmare,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a Friday briefing on the incident.
The suspect approached the victim and her friend, a 13-year-old boy, and forced them into a secluded wooded area with a “machete-style” blade when they resisted, police said.
He tied their hands with shoelaces and molested the girl before stealing their phones and telling them to wait 20 minutes after he fled the scene, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
The traumatized youngsters returned to their nearby school and reported the assault.
The suspect is a light-skinned man in his 20s with a heavy Spanish accent, has braces on his teeth and a tattoo of a bull or a similar animal with red eyes and red horns on the left side of his chest, cops said.
He was wearing a black t-shirt, black sweatpants, red sneakers and carried a green backpack.
Police said there were more than 60 investigators involved in the manhunt, and said NYPD brass met with area school officials to brief them on the investigation.
“All of the community should be very upset about this,” Maddrey said. “I want them to rest assured that we will spare no expense. We will use every investigative resource and, again, implore the help of the community to help us bring closure for these young children and for this family.”
Police said the park is typically crowded, including with students from nearby schools.
“We’ll be in this park,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell added, calling it an “all hands” response.
“We are working hand in hand with the Detective Bureau, whatever Chief Kenny and his people need,” he added. “We will work with school safety and community affairs, whether it be street enforcement, to elicit information, to leafleting, whatever we need to do to take this animal — animal — off the streets.”
The NYPD is asking anyone with information on the incident to call its Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
