An off-duty New York City police officer was arrested in Upper Manhattan on Friday after he grabbed a woman who
was on her way to work, showed her he had a gun and raped her in the backyard
of a nearby building, the police said.
The officer, Michael
V. Pena, 27, was suspended without pay and stripped of his gun and badge after
he was arrested about 6:30 a.m. by officers from the 34th Precinct who had
responded to a 911 call from a neighbor awoken by the noise, the police said.
He was charged with forcible rape, the officials said.
Officer Pena, a
three-year member of the force who has been assigned to the 33rd Precinct since
January, lives in Yonkers and had last worked a midnight shift that ended at 8
a.m. Thursday, said Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman. He was
due back at work on Saturday.
The woman, a
25-year-old teacher, told the police that she was on her way to work in the Bronx when a man who appeared to be intoxicated
approached her near her home in Inwood and asked for directions to the No. 1
train, Mr. Browne said.
At one point, the man
put his arm around her, opened his jacket, pointed at a pistol that was on his
belt, and said, “ ‘You’re coming with me,’ ” Mr. Browne said.
The man, who was not
believed to have identified himself as a police officer, led the woman along
for two to three blocks “under threat,” Mr. Browne said. He turned into a
backyard behind a residential building near Park Terrace West and West 217th Street,
then raped her, Mr. Browne said.
A woman who lives in
the building was awoken by the noise and looked outside to see what was
happening. “She felt it just didn’t look consensual to her,” Mr. Browne said.
About two minutes later, a man walking in the area came upon the attacker,
whose pants were down, the police said. He excused himself, apparently
believing he had interrupted a consensual encounter. When two uniformed
officers arrived, within three minutes of the 911 call, they saw the attacker
and the woman standing in the backyard, “and the victim ran to the police
officers and said, ‘He raped me; be careful, he has a gun,’ ” Mr. Browne
said.
The officers
handcuffed the man and called an ambulance, which took the woman to
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. As the police
searched the man, they found his police identification and his badge in his
pocket, Mr. Browne said.
“And his gun was on
the ground next to him,” Mr. Browne said, referring to a loaded 9-millimeter
Glock pistol.
Additional charges
against the officer were pending, the police said.
