It can happen here — even on one of the quietest blocks in Carroll Gardens.
A violent sexual predator who attacked a woman on Second Place is still at large, and now his victim is speaking out to do more than just bring the thug to justice: she’s also trying to spread the word that danger lurks on even the most neighborly streets.
According to the 30-year-old woman, who wished not to be named, a 3 am stroll with her dog near Court Street went sour when a creep followed her to her stoop, punched her and slammed her head against the pavement, and tried to rape her on May 30.
“You think that this doesn’t happen here, but it did,” she said.
The victim added that she’s just lucky that the attack didn’t escalate further; if it weren’t for a few heroic neighbors who responded to her screams, she said she might not be alive.
She told police that she was almost to her front door when she heard the gate behind her squeak open. She turned to find her assailant.
“When I saw him at the gate, I thought s—, here we go,” she said. “I walked away from my door because I didn’t want him to force me inside. I know it can get a lot worse if they get you inside.”
The deranged man punched her in the face and threw her to the ground. She said that he put his hands up her dress and tried to pull down her underwear, but she resisted by scratching his arms and screaming as loud as she could.
Luckily, a few neighbors came running out of their nearby homes and scared the man off after leaving his victim with a concussion and “plenty of scratches.”
The predator is described as a 5-feet-6 Hispanic man, about 23 years old, with short, dark hair. He was wearing a gray and white T-shirt, blue jeans and bright white sneakers.
In the end, the victim said that she isn’t going to let the incident deter her from living happily in Carroll Gardens — but she wants others to know that nobody’s perfectly safe at 3 am.
“I’ve been living in this paradise neighborhood, and now it’s harder to come home,” she said. “But crime’s everywhere and it can happen here, too.”
