A previously DC-based journalist revealed Thursday that she was “violently attacked and sexually assaulted” within the nation’s capital – and that the town’s police division refused to incorporate the incident of their crime stats.
Anna Giaritelli, a homeland safety reporter with the Washington Examiner, detailed the heinous, broad-daylight assault towards her, in addition to the response from the Metropolitan Police Division and the court docket system, in a dramatic op-ed – which comes days after President Trump introduced a sweeping crime crackdown in Washington, DC.
“On a Saturday morning in 2020, I walked out of my house on Capitol Hill to mail a package deal at a submit workplace a number of blocks from the US Capitol. I placed on my black sweatshirt and black sweatpants then headed out the door. I by no means made it to the submit workplace,” Giaritelli wrote.
“Only one block from my house constructing’s entrance, I used to be attacked by a big man effectively over six toes tall. He charged at me for a purpose that I nonetheless don’t perceive. In broad daylight and on well-traveled 2nd Avenue NE subsequent to Union Station, I fought to get away as he sexually assaulted me,” she continued.
“If it had not been for others within the neighborhood, together with a building employee named Donny who heard my screaming and ran to my rescue, I don’t know if I’d be right here at the moment.”
Giaritelli defined that the assault demonstrated to her, firsthand, how “DC police and the courts fail the general public.”
Regardless of her attacker, described as a “homeless man,” being apprehended “months later” and sentenced to jail time, Giaritelli wrote: “If you happen to search for proof that the assault occurred within the metropolis’s crime statistics, you received’t discover it.”
“DC police coated up the unspeakable improper that the stranger did to me,” the reporter stated.
The Metropolitan Police Division’s on-line “Crime Playing cards” statistics web page – which purportedly tracks prison offenses and pegs them to a map, exhibiting the place they occurred within the district – doesn’t embrace Giaritelli’s assault and sexual assault, she claims.
“After I requested MPD in 2020 why my incident was not on its crime map, an MPD spokesman stated the town solely consists of 1st diploma felonies beneath its crime stats,” the reporter defined.
“That will imply that for each particular person robbed, assaulted, or sexually abused in something lower than egregious methods, you haven’t been counted into the full tally.”
“The ache you suffered was not extreme sufficient, based on MPD’s requirements.”
Giaritelli stated she was then advised by MPD, this week, that the crime map does embrace “some intercourse abuse fees, however not all of them.”
She famous that the crime towards her continues to be not listed within the on-line database.
Giaritelli praised DC regulation enforcement’s fast response to the assault, noting that they collected DNA proof which they had been capable of match to a vagrant about two months later, resulting in his arrest.
Her attacker, nevertheless, was “instantly launched from jail” by the choose dealing with the case, main Giaritelli to very fairly concern that he was again “residing in a tunnel” simply blocks from her house.
The vagrant was “arrested in 5 separate incidents” and allowed out of jail each single time, whereas he awaited trial for the sexual assault, Giaritelli stated.
MPD didn’t instantly reply to The Put up’s request for remark.
Trump on Monday claimed that DC’s crime statistics – exhibiting violent offenses down about 26% in comparison with final 12 months – had been “phony” and promised that Lawyer Common Pam Bondi can be “trying into that.”
The president additional famous {that a} DC police commander was suspended final month for allegedly falsifying crime knowledge to make developments seem extra constructive.
