Albany

NY Woman Raped After Botched Police Response to Get $200K

The officers weren’t disciplined, according to court records

New York State Police patrol the grounds of the state Capitol
AP

The city government in Albany, New York, has agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to a woman who was raped in November 2017 after a botched police response to a 911 call.

The Albany Times-Union reported Saturday that the woman’s lawsuit alleged that the dispatcher who answered her friend’s 911 call failed to convey the gravity of the situation to responding officers, who never entered the apartment where she was held.

The assailant, Abdul Trowell, was later arrested and convicted of rape and kidnapping. He is serving a sentence of up to 15 years. The officers weren’t disciplined, according to court records.

Prosecutors say Trowell, armed with a knife, carried the woman to his apartment across from the governor’s mansion after encountering her and her friend on the street and offering to drive their car for them because they’d been drinking.

The friend, a man, called 911 and told a dispatcher he feared Trowell was “gonna try to rape her,” the newspaper reported. The dispatcher failed to classify the call as an emergency and didn’t note that it involved a weapon.

Trowell refused to let the three responding officers into the apartment, speaking with them instead in the hallway for more than an hour, the lawsuit said.

The officers told the friend the only way they could arrest Trowell is if the woman’s friend filed a complaint at a police station, the lawsuit said.

They later ordered the friend to leave, “leaving (her) alone, unconscious, and unprotected,” the lawsuit said. According to prosecutors, Trowell raped the woman minutes after the officers left.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission.

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