Stop Street Harassment

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NY subway platform groper arrested

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Shyane Dejesus - image via NYDailyNews

“I was raised to fight back. I felt disgusting. I’m nice but I’m a tough cookie.” – Shyane DeJesus

Last week, 22-year old college student Shyane DeJesus attacked, berated, and snapped a cell phone picture of a man who groped her on a subway platform in New York City.

Yesterday she identified him from a police lineup of suspects.

Via NY Daily Mail:

“I knew it was him right away,” Shyane Dejesus, a senior at City College, said Monday. “It is a face I couldn’t forget. … I was overwhelmed. I started crying.”

The man she identified, Froylan Andrade, 39, was awaiting arraignment Monday night on sex abuse charges — a day after cops arrested him at his Elmhurst, Queens, home…

Cops said they were able to arrest Andrade because of a tipster who recognized him from the photo Dejesus snapped.

Andrade was arrested Sunday after his brother gave cops his address.

Both brothers work at Spring Natural, a restaurant on Spring St. Police went there after getting the tip…

Dejesus, who got off the subway at Astor Place, urged other women to fight back too.

“Don’t let them scare you,” she said. “They’re cowards.”

If you’re able to take a photo of a harasser, it can be really useful to do so, especially if you’re going to report the harasser to the police, transit authorities, or business owners (depending on where the harassment took place). Since the harasser is a stranger to you, having a photo can help those in charge identify the perpetrator. Without the photo, DeJesus’ groper may not have ever been caught, or at least he may not have been caught so quickly.
As DeJesus suggests, if you feel safe, speak up against harassers. Here are tips for how to respond to them and how to report them.
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Gropers Caught in Boston!

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Earlier this week, a 52-year old man allegedly groped a young woman’s butt on a subway platform in Boston. She asked the man’s friend if he groped her and he said no. The alleged groper then chimed in saying it was him and that he bet she liked it and that he liked it and he was never going to see her again, so what did it matter.

The young woman reported him to police, who thankfully took her report seriously and arrested him. Good for her, good for the police. BOO to the stupid groper. I wonder how many other women he’s groped?! Hopefully she was the last. [Wordpress won’t let me embed it, but follow this link to see a short news clip about the story.]

Also that same night in a separate incident, police arrested another subway groper. A 37-year-old man groped a woman and then verbally harased her until she got off the train and reported him.

Last weekend MBTA launched more anti-sexual harassment ads on subways and buses, including this one:

Given how many men grope women on subways and buses in major cities around the world, other cities would do well to pay attention and perhaps start their own campaign and educate their MTA workers and police officers how to handle reports correctly, the way the officers did in these two incidents. Good job, Boston!

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Salt Lake City Groper May Have Other Victims

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I’m a few weeks late with this, but I just came across a news story about a man who was arrested in May for groping two women (two different incidents) in public in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. The police believe he may have groped other women and are asking for anyone he targeted to come forward. The two women he groped were both 28 years old with blond hair who looked similar, so they think he may have been targeting specific women.

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