06/18/2024
THANK YOU TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNITY. A 25-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the violent child sexual attack that has terrorized a Queens community for days, two senior police officials with direct knowledge of the case said Tuesday.
The man, whose name has not publicly been released, was taken into custody at 108th and Waldron Street, less than three miles from the popular Kissena Park where officials allege he ambushed two 13-year-olds in a field after school Thursday, forced them into the woods at knifepoint and tied them up before sexually assaulting the girl.
Two senior police officials say he is an Ecuadorian national who arrived in New York City in 2021. They say he returned to the rooming house where he is staying early Tuesday and those living there recognized him from video and wanted posters released by police. They then started attacking him, the sources say, and called 911 to say โcome get him.โ
Details on charges werenโt immediately available.
Multiple high-level NYPD officials had pleaded with the public Friday for help identifying the tattooed stranger they say forced the schoolmates into the woods. They had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
According to investigators, the boy and girl were on a field in Kissena Park around 3 p.m., just after school let out for the day, when a curly-haired man with braces walked up and demanded they follow him into the woods. When they refused, police say he pulled out a โlarge machete-style knifeโ and forced them into an isolated area, where he bound each of their wrists with a shoelace. Then he sexually assaulted the 13-year-old girl.