Police: Woman raped in St. Paul as bystanders look on
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(AP) Prosecutors on Thursday charged a man who allegedly raped and beat a woman in an apartment hallway, an incident apparently witnessed by as many as 10 people who did nothing.
Rage Ibrahim, 26, was charged with several counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the attack early Tuesday. According to the criminal complaint, police responded to a call of drunken behavior in an apartment hallway, where they found both Ibrahim and a woman lying unconscious. The woman's clothing had been pulled up, she had fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh.
Police obtained surveillance video from the hallway, which showed the assault starting as early as 1:20 a.m. Police weren't dispatched to the scene until almost 90 minutes later, when someone finally called to report drunken behavior in the hallway.
Police spokesman Tom Walsh said the video footage clearly showed five to 10 people, both men and women, looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the assault occurred.
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"It shows one person looking out of her door probably three times," Walsh said. "It shows another person walking up, observing what's going on, then turning and putting up the hood of his sweatshirt."
The 26-year-old victim knocked on a door at one point, yelling for the occupants to call police. A man inside that apartment told police he didn't open the door or look out, but said he did call police - although they have no record of his call, according to court documents.
The complaint said the video shows Ibrahim hitting the woman several times before sexually assaulting her. It said the woman was visiting the apartment of a friend, where she met Ibrahim; after drinking for several hours, she told police Ibrahim tried to stop her from leaving, and began to assault her.
Ibrahim denied to police that he tried to rape the woman, saying if he wanted to do so he would have done it in the apartment, according to the complaint.
Walsh said police were upset by the behavior of the bystanders. "It's not what we expect of responsible citizens," he said.
"If you're not comfortable, if you don't feel capable of intervening, that's fine," Walsh said. "But not calling is not understandable."
