Thread: 911 operator, tough woman stop rape attempt

http://www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?RECORD ... s%5D=16780]

Posted: 8/21/2006 4:20:00 PM

911 operator, tough woman stop rape attempt
Source: KRQE News 13
Watch Shauna Clark’s report.


Police trying to indentify rape-attempt suspect.


ALBUQUERQUE -- Quick police work, an alert 911 operator and a tough would-be victim are being credited with stopping a rape attempt.

The 911 operator reported seeing the woman’s northeast Albuquerque address come up on her computer screen early Sunday morning, but there was not one on the phone line.

In the background, however, the operator could hear a woman begging someone not to hurt her.

Police allege a Mexican national they are calling John Doe until they establish his identity broke into the 74-year-old woman’s home.

The woman, however, said she had seen the man in her neighbor’s backyard, which sent her to her telephone..

By the time she called 911, the man had found his way into her home. She told police the man struck her in the back of her head with a hard object and then dragged her by her hand to the bedroom.

She said just before the man was about to rape her, police announced they were outside.

“Very smart thinking on behalf of the victim,” Albuquerque Police Department Officer Trish Hoffman said. “At one point when there was some downtime, she was able to pick up a picture frame and hit the offender in the head.”

Police were able to assist her, and they captured the offender within a few minutes.">

The woman was badly hurt and taken to UNM Hospital where an emergency room nurse told police the woman suffered trauma to the head with both of her eyes being swollen shut.

The nurse also was concerned her hand was broken during the attack.

The arrested suspect told police he doesn't remember what happened, but that he must have done it, according to a criminal complaint.

The man is charged with attempted criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping and two counts of aggravated battery.

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/ar ... 83,00.html

Woman, 74, fights off attempted rape
By Maggie Shepard
Tribune Reporter
August 22, 2006

A 74-year-old woman fought off an attempted rapist, smashing his head with a picture frame she grabbed from the wall he was pushing her against, according to court documents.

Albuquerque police nabbed a man they believe is the attempted rapist, but they can't figure out what his real name is, police spokeswoman Trish Hoffman said.

Officers chased down the man, a Mexican national who gave the names Balerano Canto and Valeriano Cantu-Ayala, and tackled him about a half-block from the victim's home in the 800 block of Manzano Street Northeast near San Mateo and Lomas boulevards, according to a Metro Court criminal complaint.

Noises from her neighbor's yard woke the victim up just before 2 a.m. Sunday. She told police she started to call 911 when she saw a man in her neighbor's backyard.

Before she could speak with the operator, the man was inside her house and had hit her over the head with a heavy object.

He then dragged her through a puddle of her own blood to another room, where he attempted to rape her. When his body wouldn't function to accomplish the crime, the man pushed the woman against a wall, according to the complaint.

Emergency operators could hear what was happening in the home and dispatched officers.

An officer hollering his presence at the woman's home startled the man, and the victim took the moment to grab a picture frame from the wall and smash it over his head, according to the complaint.

The man fled, but police captured a man they believe is the attempted rapist running about a half-block away.

That man, whose hands and head were bleeding, told detectives he had amnesia and didn't remember attacking anyone but did remember hitting something, according to the complaint.