What started as a festive Fourth of July evening at Coney Island turned into a night of horror for 25-year-old Melasia Harris.
She says she was raped by a stranger while bystanders laughed, filmed the assault, and treated her cries for help as entertainment.
Harris told The New York Post she was at the popular Brooklyn beach to meet a friend who never showed up. Choosing to stay and mingle with new acquaintances, she celebrated into the early morning hours — until a man she didn’t know approached her and allegedly assaulted her in front of a crowd.
“All of a sudden, this dude came out of nowhere,” Harris said. “I kept looking at him. Is he drunk? I don’t know.” Seconds later, she said she fell onto a mat, and the man jumped on top of her. What’s more disturbing: people reportedly stood by, watched, and laughed.
“I started hearing people laughing. They sat across and watched like it was a movie,” Harris recounted.
Adding to the horror, she said a golf cart — possibly driven by beach security — passed by during the attack. Its headlights shone on the scene, but it didn’t stop.
“They just left me,” she said.
Harris said she was eventually able to break free, but the attacker followed her and allegedly raped her again — this time throwing her into a nearby fence, pressing her face into the sand and bushes as she screamed for help.
The terrifying encounter didn’t end there. Harris says the man bizarrely followed her to the West 8th Street subway station and sat beside her on a bench, “like we were a couple.”
When she finally escaped, Harris said she made it home and was later taken to the hospital by ambulance, where she underwent a rape kit examination.
The NYPD confirmed a rape report was filed for around 3 a.m. on Saturday, July 5, near Boardwalk West and Stillwell Avenue — the same time and location Harris described. The suspect is still at large and was described as a man in his 20s.
What haunts Harris even more than the assault, she says, is the crowd’s inaction.
“People were there,” she said. “Nobody helped.”
She has since been hospitalized for panic attacks and continues to suffer trauma.
“Every day I wake up at 6 a.m. on the dot. I feel crazy every single day, like I’m still there,” she said.
Harris said she chose to share her story in the hope that it helps bring the attacker to justice — and draws attention to the alarming indifference of those who watched without intervening.
