Manhunt after knifepoint sex assault in Central Park: What we know

This morning, there is an active search for a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman at knife point in Central Park. This attack happened Saturday night near East 66th Street and Fifth Avenue. I mean, if you're familiar with the park, you know, some of the locations in the city, Jessica, there's an entrance to the park there, right? I mean, that's a very busy spot, popular area, I mean, at all times of the day. Good morning, Dan. Yeah, right, an entrance right to my left here, and it's a very busy entrance. we have been seeing moms and nannies with strollers walking in and out of the park walkers, residents of this area walking in and out all morning long. I actually spoke with a few women who are terrified. This attack, Dan, happened at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday. So 8.30 is still relatively early. One woman told me she's in her 80s and she told me she was out here walking her dog at the same time. And she said she didn't hear anything thing that she read about it online and she is scared. She even said to me this morning that she has this device and alarm that she's going to be carrying with her every time she leaves her apartment, but just awful what happened here over the weekend. So what we know so far is that police tell us that the suspect approached the victim at knife point and took her to a wooded area in this section and that is where he raped her. 39 years old. She was taken to the hospital, we're told, in stable condition at this time. But that suspect's still on the loose. We don't have many details on him. Police telling us that he's in his 30s. He was wearing all black, a black sweatshirt, black pants, and a black backpack. We can only imagine how horrific and terrified women feel because, Dan, according to the latest NYPD stats this is now the fifth rape here in Central Park this year and Jessica is there any indication was this woman running or was she just sort of walking in this area was she because i know you can enter the park that way do we know if she was trying to enter the park or if she was walking up Fifth Avenue or something like that what do we know about some of the circumstances of how this happened so i spoke to police trying to get some more information because very little details so far. They did tell me that the woman was in the park, unclear if she was just walking, if she was jogging. When they gave us the address where the incident, where this attack, this sexual assault happened, they told us East 66th and Fifth Avenue. And of course, when I called police, I said, that makes it seem like at this entrance, right? It couldn't have been here at the entrance because people are walking in and out of the park at all hours of the day. Someone had to see something, and that's when I was told by a source that it didn't happen just here at the entrance. The woman was either dragged or taken at knife point to, this is what I was told, a bushy area, a wooded area of the park, and that is where she was sexually assaulted. All right, and Jessica, I just wanna show this statement that we got from the local council member who represents this area. We can just bring that up on the screen here, it's from Virginia Maloney. She says, I am horrified by the rape of a woman at Knife Point near East 66th Street, 5th Avenue. My heart is with the survivor. She deserves support and justice. This is the second reported attack on a woman on the east side of Central Park just in the past week. She says, I run in Central Park myself. Women deserve to feel safe there at any hour. The attacker remains at large and must be caught. I will continue working with our local NYPD precincts to address this violence, to keep our community safe. And Jessica, I know you spoke with a few women out there this morning. Do you want to set that up and then we can play some of that interview that you did just a few minutes ago? Yeah, I spoke to a few women here. One of them, as I mentioned earlier, she was in her 80s. I approached her. She was walking her dog. She said, where did it happen? So I told her, you know, it wasn't at this entrance, but it was somewhere back there in the wooded area. And she said, oh, my God, I was here on Saturday at that time walking my dog. She was shocked. And I could tell when I was having the conversation with her, she was actually a little nervous and scared and told me that she's going to be extra careful every time she leaves her apartment. She actually came from Vermont. She was she raised her children here in New York City, lived in Vermont for many, many years and came back now. She says, I've only been here for less than two weeks, and to hear that this happened in my own backyard, she's terrified. Take a listen. I come from Vermont, and I have this thing that makes a whole lot of noise. It's a bear horn. So I have to find it and start carrying it with me because, you know, it's just shocking to me. Obviously, you never like to hear things like that, particularly as a local. But I think ultimately things happen everywhere, in my opinion. I'm not really sure how we can fight against really bad people, frankly. I've been living here for over 54 years. You never walk into the park at night. We're always told not to do that. Jessica, now we're looking at some video here. This is not, these are not images of the suspect involved in this latest attack. This picture that we're seeing right here, these are people who were involved in a separate attack that we heard the council members speaking about that happened last week. What do we know about that one, Jessica? Yeah, so this attack happened on the 18th. And police tell us that a woman, 32 years old, she was also walking in the park. That happened near West 93rd Street and West Drive. She was attacked, approached by these three suspects. And police tell us that they hit her over the head multiple times and then robbed her. So she was attacked and robbed. The suspects there, those three individuals are who police are looking for at this time. They, too, are still on the loose this morning. So police are asking the public if you have any information on either of the attacks, the rape that happened here on Saturday night or that last one that happened a week ago on West Drive. If you have any information to contact police, again, not a lot of details at this time about of the suspect in this rape case. We know, again, around 30 years old, wearing black pants, black sweatshirt, a black backpack. But if you were at the park at that time, between 8, 8:30-ish, 9 o'clock, you saw something suspicious, maybe came across this suspect leaving the park, and you didn't know that he had just committed a horrific act, call police. Any tips really could help catch this guy who's on the loose this morning. All right, Jessica Famoso, thank you very much for that thorough reporting on the situation in Central Park. The NYPD, again, looking for someone who sexually assaulted a woman. That happened over the weekend, and they're also looking for These other suspects involved in an assault, someone who was robbed in the park, another woman robbed in the park. That happened last week. We're going to be talking to a former NYPD detective coming up in the next 20 minutes or so about that situation.