For all its sunlit spaces and lush trees, Queens’ Kissena Corridor Park has a dark side: dense, dark forests that many people avoid.
There, beneath a dense canopy that blankets the ground in inky, elongated shadows, a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted Thursday by a knife-wielding tattooed man, leaving rattled parkgoers wondering what other horrors lay hidden among the trees .
“It’s dark out there,” Paul Kim said of the remote trail where the afternoon attack took place. “I always thought they should put some kind of surveillance in there or block it completely.
“Generally you don’t see kids hanging out there,” he said of the dark path. “Most kids probably get scary [out] in there. Even for me it would be fun to look around.
On Saturday, the NYPD had placed portable floodlights along the path and were patrolling the path on horseback. A wanted poster was hung every few meters with a sketch of the sexual predator involved in the attack, showing the intricate tattoo of a horned wild boar with red eyes that he had on his chest.
“He probably knew to wait in that area,” said Kim, 48. “We want this man captured.”
Police were actively searching for the attacker on Saturday, hoping DNA from a water bottle left at the scene could help identify him.
The creep approached the 13-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy just as they finished playing soccer near the corner of Colden St. and Kalmia Ave. and ordered them to follow him into the forest.
When they refused, he displayed a “large machete-style knife,” NYPD Chief Joseph Kenny said Friday.
He took the children to the park, tied their wrists with a shoelace and sexually assaulted the girl before making off with his victims’ cellphones, police said.
“It’s horrible,” Kim said. “It’s surprising that it happened at 3 p.m. That’s just crazy.”
Visitors to Kissena Corridor Park, a narrow green space connecting Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to Kissena Park, said they avoid the heavily wooded areas, especially at night.
“I don’t normally walk here at night,” a park visitor, who identified herself only as Grace, told the Daily News as she looked at a wanted poster along the route. “That would be crazy.”
Shocked by news of the attack, Grace, 77, said: “It hurts my heart.”
‘How old is the girl? 13?” she added. “We can’t trust it [anyone]. We have to be careful.”
According to recent NYPD statistics, there were two robberies and one assault in Kissena Corridor Park on March 31. Last year, Kissena Corridor Park was host to four robberies, two assaults and one grand theft, police said.
In the near future, the NYPD plans to increase patrols, fly drones and install cameras in the park.
There are no cameras in the park, only at the entrances, but police expanded their search for surveillance footage that could help them identify the attacker.
“We’re going to go miles and miles to find video,” Kenny said.
The attacker is described as a Hispanic man in his 20s, approximately 6 feet tall, with curly hair and braces. He was wearing a black T-shirt, black sweatpants and red sneakers, and he was carrying a green backpack.
He spoke English with a heavy Spanish accent, Kenny said. He added that police were trying to determine if the attack was related to some kind of robbery pattern in the area.
A $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspect.
“This incident is every parent’s nightmare,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said Friday. “The entire community should be very upset about this and be willing to come out and assist the police as we try to solve this problem.”
Anyone with information about the attack and the attacker’s whereabouts is urged to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All conversations are treated confidentially.
