By Emily Alpert Staff Writer
Gilroy
– A masked man attacked and raped a 16-year-girl in broad
daylight Tuesday afternoon, pulling her from a popular trail behind
Gilroy High School, police said.
Gilroy – A masked man attacked and raped a 16-year-girl in broad daylight Tuesday afternoon, pulling her from a popular trail behind Gilroy High School, police said.
The girl was walking north on the Uvas Creek levee about 4pm Tuesday when a man in a ski mask came up from behind and hit her on the head with an unknown object. She lapsed in and out of conscious as the man dragged her down toward Uvas Creek and raped her, the girl told police.
Though his face was masked, the victim was able to provide police with some details about her attacker, describing him as a white man in his mid-20s, roughly 6 feet tall and weighing 250 pounds, with nearly black eyes. He had pale, thick hands, and his forearms had no tattoos or scars. He wore a white T-shirt, black jeans, black shoes and smelled of Axe body spray, the girl told police. During the rape, he said nothing. Afterwards, he got up and fled down the levee.
The victim walked to the police station and reported the crime at 4:30pm, said Detective Mitch Madruga. As of press time Wednesday, the rapist was at large.
The rape is the third such incident reported near Christmas Hill Park this spring. Last month, a 15-year-old girl reported that four men approached her as she walked on the Uvas Levee on a weekday morning. The girl said she left with one man, who raped her near the park amphitheater. Earlier in April, a 14-year-old boy reported being assaulted by a man who offered him a ride to the library, then drove him to the park and molested him.
The assaults in April and May follow seven rapes recorded from January to March 2007, a marked increase from January to March 2006, when only one was recorded. Statistics are similar in the nearby city of Hollister. So far this year in Hollister, there has been one reported rape. In 2006, four rapes were reported to the Hollister Police Department, down from seven the year before.
Principal James Maxwell was stunned by the news Wednesday afternoon, and was unaware of the previous rape in the area, reported in the Dispatch on April 27. Police hadn’t notified him of either assault, he said.
Tuesday afternoon, police took the victim to a nearby hospital, where she was examined. Detectives hope the exam will yield evidence, but won’t know until the swabs are returned from the county crime lab, where technicians will analyze them for DNA evidence. The victim was awake fielding police questions until 2am along with Cpl. Rosa Quiñones and an advocate from Community Solutions, who accompanied her to the hospital. A sketch of the rapist has yet to be completed.
Cameras at the high school could also prove important, Madruga said, if a camera was pointed toward the levee. Madruga said police asked the school to aim a camera toward the creek after a series of arson cases years ago, but was unsure Tuesday morning if the cameras had recorded anything significant.
If found, the attacker could face charges of kidnapping and rape, each punishable by at least three years in state prison.
The levee behind Gilroy High School is a popular trail for runners and hikers. The paved trail drifts off into gravel and is surrounded by thick bushes; Madruga called it secluded, “a dead man’s zone,” though it lies just past the GHS football fields where teens practiced drills Wednesday afternoon, called to attention by a coach’s whistle. As students poured from their classes onto the front lawn Wednesday after school, few knew of the first attack, and none had heard about the second.
“I didn’t even know about that rape,” said Claudia Fernandez, a sophomore who often walks the levee. “Now I’m not walking there.”
Her friend Jaya Darbhamulla had heard about the first attack, but wasn’t fazed.
“For a day or two (after the first rape), people were worried,” she said. “But it didn’t change anything, especially in broad daylight.”
Thus far, there have been no notices sent to GHS parents about the rapes, Maxwell said. After learning of the assaults, Maxwell said the school would consider holding an information session to increase sexual assault awareness.
“Two kids – that’s a huge red flag for us,” Maxwell said. “Nobody else will give them this information, so it becomes our responsibility.”
In past years, Community Solutions has held two-hour workshops on sexual assault prevention and teen dating violence at GHS, said social worker Maricela Bravo, who works at the high school. No such presentation was arranged this year, Bravo said. Asked why the workshop hadn’t occurred, Maxwell said he was unaware that it had happened in the past, and that sparse classroom time has made it difficult to squeeze in non-academic programs.
“There’s definitely a huge need for prevention education at the school,” said Perla Flores, who directs sexual assault and domestic violence programming at Community Solutions. “We’re trying to fill it with the minimal staff we have. … We’re trying to sprinkle information everywhere, but it hasn’t really saturated into the population that we want to work with.”
This year, bolstered by a new curriculum model from the Department of Health Services, Community Solutions plans to expand its rape prevention programs, but “we haven’t defined what that will look like,” Flores said.
Lisa De Silva, the nonprofit’s director of development, cautioned that blame should rest squarely with rapists, not their victims, but said everyone should take precautions to protect themselves from sexual assault, regardless of their age, gender, location or manner of dress.
Unfortunately, “sometimes there is nothing you can do to protect yourself,” De Silva said. “That’s why we call them survivors.”
Anyone with information about the attack may call Detective Mitch Madruga at 408-846-0350 or leave an anonymous tip at 408-846-0330.
Emily Alpert covers public safety issues for the Gilroy Dispatch. She can be reached at 408-847-7158 or at ealpert@
gilroydispatch.com.
