Brooklyn politicians on Sunday blasted the NYPD for waiting two days before telling the public about the horrific rape of an 18-year-old who was attacked while walking through the park with her father.
Borough President Eric Adams charged the public would have been immediately notified had the rape occurred in Manhattan’s Central Park instead of Osborn Playground in crime-ridden Brownsville.
“For community leaders and the community to find out about this horrific crime from the tabloids is not acceptable,” Adams said.
“The imperative to catch those people shouldn’t matter if the park is Osborn [Playground] or Central Park,” he said. “The same level of urgency must be followed.”
But despite his reservations about how cops may have handled the investigation, Adams said he was confident there was no delay on the part of officers responding to the crime.
“A patrol car from the 73rd Precinct was approached on the street and told about the attack by the victim’s father, who directed the officers to the scene,’’ an NYPD rep said in a statement Sunday.
“The police officers immediately responded and located the victim. The suspects had already fled.’’
The NYPD representative continued: “Detectives in conducting an expanded canvas were able to find video in a bodega . . . After review, retrieval and copying, the video was distributed to the media around 8 p.m. on Saturday to help identity the five males.’’
The rape victim and her father had been inside Osborn Playground at around 9 p.m. Thursday when they were accosted by the five men, one of whom had a gun, police said.
The thugs ordered the dad to leave while they took turns raping the girl in the desolate park.
Mayor de Blasio, referring to the park rape, vowed in a statement Sunday to “take every step possible to find and swiftly prosecute the assailants of this vicious crime.’’
Brooklyn Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, meanwhile, ripped NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton for suggesting last week that women use “the buddy system’’ to halt cabby assaults.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Garger