In separate incidents, 2 Irish women attacked in Queens

By Harry Keaney

Two young Irish women have recently been attacked within a block of each other in Woodside, Queens. Both women said they were accosted in the early hours as they were about to enter their homes.

The first attack occurred on 62nd Street when a 22-year-old Galway woman was returning from a bar after 3 a.m. on the morning of St. Patrick’s Day. Her roommate and a friend, with whom she had gone out, were following behind.

"I had the key in my door to open it and someone came in the gate after me," the woman told the Echo.

She said a "Hispanic, heavy-set man, with longish, black wavy hair" caught her and swung her around into the corner of the doorway.

"He put his hand down my pants and put the other hand over my mouth," she said. "I couldn’t scream."

"I bit the hand that was over my mouth and with the other hand I punched him in the face," she said. "At that stage he ran."

Her friends following behind did not see her attacker. "They were about a third of the way down the block but they didn’t see him," the woman said. "He must have hid."

She said she reported the incident to the 108th Precinct, where she was shown pictures of suspects. However, she said she couldn’t identify any of them.

The woman said she wasn’t physically hurt but was emotionally shook up. She added that she didn’t think much more about the incident until Tuesday of last week, when she met another young Irish woman in a local launderette.

"By coincidence, on Tuesday night last, I was down in the launderette on Woodside Avenue," the Galway woman said. "I started talking to a girl and I asked her where she lived. She said she lived on 61st Street and when I told her to be careful, she told me she was attacked in the exact same manner by someone with the exact same description. The man ran when he noticed she had her hand on the doorbell."

"It was a pure coincidence that we met," the second woman, who’s from Northern Ireland, told the Echo this week. She said they had never met before and didn’t know each other.

The attack on this woman, who’s in her mid-20s, occurred about 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 26. She too had just walked home from a bar to her apartment building on 61st Street.

"I got in the first door, which is not locked," she said. "I had my key in the second door and I looked behind and this guy flung me around and tried to put his hand down my pants. He held my arm against the door with his other hand."

The woman said that, using her free arm, she banged on the door bells beside her and then her assailant fled.

"I think if I didn’t start pressing the door bells, he would have went further," she said.

She described her attacker as an Hispanic, about 5-foot-8 or 5-9, about 27 or 28 years old, with long curly dark hair to his jaw line. She added that he "was fairly well dressed."

She said she wasn’t physically injured but when she was fleeing up the stairs, she tripped and suffered bruises.

Both women, who requested anonymity, said they were telling their story to raise awareness of what happened in the area.

"Over the next few months, this place will be full of students," the Galway woman said. "We would like to make people aware that there is someone out there looking for vulnerable girls."

A detective at the 108th Precinct declined to discuss the incidents when contacted by the Echo.