A previously DC-based journalist revealed Thursday that she was “violently attacked and sexually assaulted” within the nation’s capital – and that 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 in opposition to 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 condo on Capitol Hill to mail a bundle at a publish 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 publish workplace,” Giaritelli wrote.
“Only one block from my condo 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 Road 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 might be right here in the present day.”
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: “In case you search for proof that the assault occurred within the metropolis’s crime statistics, you gained’t discover it.”
“DC police coated up the unspeakable flawed that the stranger did to me,” the reporter mentioned.
The Metropolitan Police Division’s on-line “Crime Playing cards” statistics web page – which purportedly tracks legal offenses and pegs them to a map, displaying the place they occurred within the district – doesn’t embody Giaritelli’s assault and sexual assault, she claims.
“Once I requested MPD in 2020 why my incident was not on its crime map, an MPD spokesman mentioned town solely contains 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 whole tally.”
“The ache you suffered was not extreme sufficient, in response to MPD’s requirements.”
Giaritelli mentioned she was then informed by MPD, this week, that the crime map does embody “some intercourse abuse expenses, however not all of them.”
She famous that the crime in opposition to 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 in a position to 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 moderately concern that he was again “dwelling in a tunnel” simply blocks from her condo.
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 mentioned.
MPD didn’t instantly reply to The Publish’s request for remark.
Trump on Monday claimed that DC’s crime statistics – displaying violent offenses down about 26% in comparison with final yr – had been “phony” and promised that Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi might be “trying into that.”
The president additional famous {that a} DC police commander was suspended final month for allegedly falsifying crime information to make traits seem extra constructive.
