It was a bright and warm Saturday afternoon in Kensington. A week after the attack, family, friends and neighbors gathered in McPherson Square Park to show their support for the victim and to celebrate the 11-year-old girl’s return from the hospital after being raped on her way to school last Tuesday.
“Let’s dedicate ourselves to making sure that nothing like this ever happens again,” Mayor Michael Nutter said at the event. “And through this process, she will have united not just this community, but this city around the issue of making sure our young people are safe, that our adults are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
On June 2, police said Jose Carrasquillo entered Little Treasures Daycare Center, where the victim was dropping off her younger sister. Carrasquillo had reportedly entered another daycare center and a local high school.
“They buzzed this gentleman in,” said the girl’s father, Clifford Reynolds, “and allowed him to hang out until [the victim] got my daughter situated and left.”
Police said the alleged rape occurred behind houses on Westmoreland Street near Emerald Street.
It is rumored that the family plans to file a lawsuit against the daycare center.
“Why would you have a deviant hanging around inside a daycare center unattended. I don’t understand that,” the father says. “They have to buzz you in and then you have to buzz yourself out. What’s the purpose of buzzing him in and not asking him two simple questions: ‘Excuse me, can I help you?’ ‘Who are you waiting for?’”
Carrasquillo is in police custody after being released Thursday from Temple University Hospital. He was beaten and held for police outside a bodega on Front and Clearwater streets. None of the participants in the beating has been charged. No formal charges have been filed against the suspect.
At the Saturday neighborhood event. Power 99 FM provided the music. Police blocked off the street. A new grill was set up. The victim seemed resilient, surrounded by her friends and family, running across the park, wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt that read “princess.” She had a brand-new hairstyle, done at a local salon closed just for her. She posed for pictures with family, radio personality, Golden Girl, Mayor Nutter and police.
The community has rallied in support of her. Businesses have donated to the family. Trust funds have been set up in the victim’s name. One by her family at Wachovia Bank, “A Moment for Hope” and another by Power 99 FM, “Our Little Angel,” which was presented to the family by Golden Girl, at Bank of America.
“I had a chance to meet her just the other day. We chatted for a good while,” Nutter said. “She’s just a wonderful little girl.”
Nutter met with family and at the event, gave the girl some books as a present, and signed them.
“This is a terrible, horrific, unimaginable incident,” the mayor said. “Every time I think about it, it’s painful.”
“I just, at a certain level, cannot imagine how horrible this must have been.”
The event was festive with people laughing and smiling, children playing in the park, and with a general feel-good atmosphere. Nevertheless, there was a somber feeling in the park. The girl’s grandmother said that she is working with the parents to bring the community together, to bring awareness to what is happening in this neighborhood and all over the city.
“I’m beautiful. I feel beautiful about the thought that she’s home. For an 11-year-old child to undergo something as brutal as she’s undergone and still be able to maintain her sanity,” her father said. When he pointed her out, he smiled. “She’s always been special.”
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