Police seek Kashaan Parks, 39, suspected of using belt to choke, rape woman in Bronx
MELROSE, The Bronx (PIX11) -- Police are searching for a man who allegedly used his belt like a lasso and choked a woman until she was unconscious and then raped her on a street in the Bronx last week.
Late Friday afternoon, detectives identified the man as Kashaan Parks, 39. He has five prior arrests, according to the NYPD, and now they seek him in relation to the crime that cops describe as heinous.
It's described similarly by residents in the area where it happened, near East 152nd Street and Third Avenue.
"I was really shocked to see someone take a belt -- that's a weapon-- and to use it around somebody's neck and just pull it like that," said Darlene Jackson, who said that she's lived in the area for 40 years. "You have no defense against it," she continued, "especially if you're going backwards."
The woman who was targeted in the sex crime, which was captured on surveillance video, fell backward after her attacker came up from behind her with a wide belt that he threw over her head, and used to choke her. In the video, she's seen trying to remove the belt from around her neck, as the man pulls her to the ground. She passes out, and the man drags her between two parked cars, where he then sexually assaulted her, according to detectives.
It happened around 5 a.m. on May 1.
"You could be going to work at that time in the morning," said Minnie Williams, another local resident. "So I feel really sad."
Williams was among many women in the area who said that they feel much less safe with the suspect still out there.
"After I saw the video," said a Melrose resident who gave only her first name, Joannie, "I was like, I'm not going outside because I don't know what's going to happen to me, like what happened to this lady."
Police said late on Friday afternoon that the woman, 45, knows the man who she says attacked her. They're familiar to each other from the neighborhood, said investigators.
They also said that after the woman regained consciousness, she made her way to Lincoln Hospital, a trauma center four blocks away.
That move was praised by advocates for survivors of sexual assaults.
Cynthia Amadeo is the CEO of Barrier Free Living, a Bronx-based support network for survivors of violence.
"To go to the hospital, and tell the police, and seek out resources for herself," said Amadeo, "that was an amazing thing that she was able to do for herself."
Detectives said that the woman got help, but didn't report the crime at first. Instead, they said, she was arrested recently for petit larceny, and that's when she told investigators about what had happened. They said the video of her being pursued, lassoed, choked, dragged and raped shows just how intensely violent the crime was.
That video can also be instructive, said Amadeo, the head of the survivor advocacy organization. She said that it shows what survivors can and should do.
"This person sought help, this person spoke up," Amadeo said. It can send a message to other survivors of sex crimes, who are many times less willing to come forward about what has happened to them, according to survivors' advocate. She said that the message to fellow survivors about coming forward is, "Maybe I can too. Maybe there's justice out there for me."
She said that it's vital that after a sex crime -- even months afterward, or longer -- survivors contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-HOPE (4673).