The suspect accused of lassoing and raping a woman on a Bronx street in a horrific act caught on video was photographed Saturday after his arrest by the NYPD.
Kashaan Parks was arrested at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and charged with attacking the 45-year-old victim in The Bronx at around 5 a.m. on May 1, the NYPD confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The NYPD released photos of the suspect on Friday and asked the public for assistance in finding him.
Surveillance video recorded the assault and shows a man throwing a looped belt around the woman’s neck before choking her unconscious and dragging her away on a dark city street.
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SUSPECTED NYC RAPIST AT LARGE AFTER VIDEO SHOWS WOMAN LASOED FROM BEHIND ON DARK STREET
Kashaan Parks, 39, was arrested Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and charged in connection to the rape of a 45-year-old woman in The Bronx, NYPD said. (Richard Harbus for Fox News Digital)
In the video, the man is shown looking up and down the block before it cuts out.
“The male then dragged the victim between two cars and sexually assaulted her,” the NYPD said in a statement.
Police identified Parks as the man wanted for looping a belt around a woman’s neck and raping her in The Bronx. (Richard Harbus for Fox News Digital)
The video, which circulated widely online Thursday, shows the masked man sneak up behind his victim, snag her around the throat with a looped belt and drag her to the ground.
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SUSPECT IN NYPD OFFICER JONATHAN DILLER SLAYING PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO MURDER, OTHER CHARGES
NYPD has identified the man wanted for looping a belt around a woman’s neck and raping her in the Bronx as 39-year-old Kashaan Parks. (NYPD)
She appears to lose consciousness within seconds, her hands falling from a defensive position to her sides as he drags her between two parked cars.
That’s where the alleged attack took place.
A still image taken from video shows the suspect the moment before the suspect throws a looped belt around the victim’s neck and drags her off on a dark Bronx street.(Obtained by NY Post)
JURY SAYS CALIFORNIA MAN WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HIKERS, SLEEPING WOMEN POSES ‘SERIOUS DANGER TO SOCIETY’
An NYPD spokesperson said Parks was charged with rape, assault, strangulation, sex abuse, public lewdness and harassment. (Richard Harbus for Fox News Digital)
NYPD said the male suspect then fled on foot towards Melrose Avenue.
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The victim was transported to NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln and is in stable condition, authorities said.
Police said Parks, 39, was identified and wanted in connection to the assault.
Still images from surveillance video released by the NYPD show a Bronx rape suspect accused of lassoing a woman from behind and sexually assaulting her on a dark street.(NYPD)
An NYPD spokesperson said Parks was charged with rape, assault, strangulation, sex abuse, public lewdness and harassment. He is in the custody of Bronx Special Victims.
As of May 5, there were 511 rapes reported in New York City, the same total as last year over the same period, according to NYPD data.
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Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
Chris Pandolfo is a writer for Fox News Digital. Send tips to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
BOSTON – The Massachusetts State House is typically quiet on Fridays but not this week, as state lawmakers work to push major pieces of legislation to the governor’s desk, including a possible return of Happy Hour.
“This place is going to be buzzing”
“I think for the next five days, this place is going to be buzzing,” State Sen. Barry Finegold told WBZ-TV from his Statehouse office. Buzzing with fellow legislators, lobbyists and stressed-out staffers racing to beat the Wednesday deadline. “We’re very hopeful that it’s going to get done.”
Republican State Rep. Marc Lombardo is frustrated by the procrastination, pointing to the House, Senate and corner office being dominated by Democrats. “It’s a tornado of activity that really doesn’t have to wait until the last week of July,” he said.
The House and Senate have until Wednesday to hammer out their differences on key bills. Bills that don’t get voted out of conference committee essentially “die” on Beacon Hill.
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Finegold heads the Joint Economic Development Committee, working on a multi-billion-dollar package that could pave the way for a new soccer stadium in Everett for the New England Revolution.
Will Happy Hour come back to Massachusetts?
How about bringing Happy Hour back to Massachusetts?
“We’re hopeful to get that passed as well,” Finegold explained. “We do have a lot of younger people in our city and throughout Massachusetts and we want to do things that we think they’ll like.”
While Rep. Lombardo can see how this could help the economy, he’s not a fan of the last-minute rush to the finish line.
He said lawmakers are “expected to read bills very quickly as they come out of conference committee…hundreds of pages of documents and yet forced to get a vote because we’ve waited to the last moment to put things on the floor.”
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Complex legislation, packed with all sorts of line items.
The CEO of Boston Pads is watching the housing bill closely as lawmakers debate whether or not to ban broker’s fees for renters.
“These agents spend a lot of timing calling all day. It’s not uncommon for them to show an apartment at eight or even nine o’clock at night,” said Demetrios Salpoglou.
It’s a vote that he said could have crippling impacts on the real estate industry in Massachusetts.
This is just a glimpse of the mad rush and closed-door negotiations at the State House.
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“This is what it takes,” Finegold said. “We have to get things done.”
Tiffany Chan
Tiffany Chan is a general assignment reporter for WBZ-TV.
CONCORD — Out of Joe Biden’s shadow, Vice President Kamala Harris’s historic campaign to become the nation’s first woman president began well here this past week, though she didn’t lack for detractors.
“I think Granite Staters are really excited to have Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket,” said Craig Brown, who was state director of her 2020 presidential run.
“She is someone who has really been a fighter her entire career. … She has what it takes to be president,” Brown said.
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But to win New Hampshire this November, Harris will need a script vastly different from the one that received lousy reviews during her first presidential bid four years ago.
Harris never got to the 2020 presidential candidate filing gate in New Hampshire, dropping out in December 2019, weeks after her campaign said she would “mail” in her candidacy papers rather than show up in person.
“To call that campaign an epic failure is a gross understatement,” said Greg Moore, regional director for Americans for Prosperity, a fiscally conservative group that backed Nikki Haley’s 2024 White House run.
After a successful New Hampshire visit, Harris infamously said on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah that New Hampshire journalists acted surprised that a woman of color would spend so much time campaigning in mostly white New Hampshire.
“The first line of questioning I got was, ‘You’re in New Hampshire, and we heard you’re not going to come to New Hampshire. We thought you weren’t going to compete in New Hampshire,’” Harris said at the time.
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“And what no one said, but the inference was, well, the demographic of New Hampshire is not who you are in terms of your race and who you are.”
Since being elected with Biden in 2020, Harris has been in the state once, for an April 2021 visit that was well-received. Her husband has been here twice.
A wide open race
Pat Griffin, a Republican media strategist who worked on the ground here to help elect both Bush presidents, said, “She truly has been thus far a terrible candidate — the cackle, the prancing around, it’s difficult to watch.
“All that said, she has one important thing Joe Biden did not have. She behaves 24/7 like she’s truly alive, and against Donald Trump, with all the baggage he has, that counts for a lot.”
Academics and political insiders agree Harris has a brief window to cultivate an image that offers a contrast not just to Trump but to her current boss.
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Then-candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spar during a 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit in August 2019. Some observers say Harris’s performance then makes them look forward to a debate with Donald Trump.
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Lucas Jackson/Reuters File
“This race is now wide open both here and nationally,” said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
“If she takes this moment to sort of change things, it could really have an impact. Whether she does it or not is the question. She is not brand-new, she’s a known commodity, but there is the potential to reshape her image as someone other than a West Coast left-wing liberal.”
As if on cue, a new University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of New Hampshire voters has Harris leading Trump 49% to 43%, with a solid 45% to 33% edge among independent voters.
In a UNH poll in May, 84% of Democrats were solidly backing Biden. In the new poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday, the party base support for Harris was up to 94%.
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Dante Scala, professor of politics at UNH, believes this quick sprint to Nov. 5 will work in Harris’s favor.
“They don’t have to worry about overthinking it,” Scala said. “So many times we see candidates and campaigns try way too hard. This is going to be all about impulse and instincts. If she has the right ones, this could go real well.”
Scala said her 14th-place showing in the New Hampshire primary after she quit the race won’t matter a whit.
“You remember all that, I remember all that, but most voters don’t even have a memory of her as a presidential candidate,” Scala said. “In that respect, she’s a clean slate.”
Appeal to youth
There’s no disputing that young Democratic-leaning voters are energized by the prospect of nominating Harris, 59, rather than Biden, 81.
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New Hampshire has 11 young delegates going to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, one of the largest groups per capita of any state in the nation.
“Young people know what’s at stake this fall because our rights are on the ballot,” said K.R. Epstein of Manchester, one of those younger delegates. “We also know that young people have the power to sway presidential elections and Vice President Kamala Harris is focused on earning our votes. I know that VP Harris has the ability to take on Donald Trump and win.”
Another young delegate, Prescott Herzog of Claremont, said he’s confident Harris will reunite the Democratic Party.
“This will be my first time voting in a presidential election. and I couldn’t be prouder to cast my vote for Kamala Harris,” Herzog said.
“Her work with President Biden enacting legislation on the issues young voters care about, from climate to gun violence, shows that she will continue the Biden-Harris administration’s effectiveness.”
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After fiercely fighting to preserve the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said he was determined to put together a delegate slate that looked like America. He did it with many minority delegates and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley conducts a press briefing with fellow democrats including Sen. Becky Whitley (D-Hopkinton) at a party office in downtown Nashua on Wednesday.
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DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER
Concord lobbyist Jim Demers, who has been a pledged delegate to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, said this may prove to be his most memorable convention.
“I’ve never been this stoked for a convention before. They are all fun, but this one is one for the history books,” said Demers. “I am really thrilled for the youngest members of the delegation, because this is a great story they’ll be able to tell their grandchildren.”
State Rep. Latha Mangipudi, D-Nashua, a superdelegate to the convention this time and a leader in the state’s growing Indian community, said “it’s long past time” for a woman to ascend to the nation’s highest office.
“We have even had Third World nations that have had women presidents. This is the time, this is the election, this is the candidate,” Mangipudi said.
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Delegate Sumathi Madhure, a physical therapist, said she had doubts there would be a South Asian on the presidential ticket in her lifetime. Now there’s an even shot one becomes president.
“Fairly or not, there was some apathy out there with President Biden at the top of the ticket,” Madhure said during a news conference this past week. “Now, all that is gone and wiped away.”
State Rep. Latha Mangipudi, D-Nashua, talks with then-U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris during Harris’s presidential campaign stop in Nashua in May 2019.
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Kimberly Houghton/Union Leader File
A surge of energy
Despite her stumbles as a candidate in 2020, Harris had her moments, including her comments at the first presidential debate about Biden’s past support for forced busing.
“I for one can’t wait for that debate or debates with Donald Trump,” said former state House Speaker Terie Norelli, D-Portsmouth, and the first female Democrat to lead the 400-person House.
“What’s most amazing to me was that this surge of energy came flooding in literally in an instant. You can’t manufacture that.”
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Scala believes the election here may be determined by the middle-class male vote, which Trump won decisively in 2016 but Biden securely captured in 2020.
“How they vote will determine if this is a nail-biter like it was for Hillary Clinton (who narrowly won here) in 2016 or a pretty easy ride like it was for Biden four years later,” Scala said.
“Yes, we’re a swing state, but a Democratic-presidential leaning state.”
Griffin, the Republican media strategist, said he just doesn’t know where the small but pivotal number of truly undecided voters will move here and in other swing states.
“I think she’s got a better shot at them because so many have looked at Trump and decided they aren’t eating that dog food,” Griffin said. But, he said, “She has to make a very strong sell.”
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Buckley, the state Democratic Party chair, thinks his party’s secret weapon is its ground game. Democrats have 16 field offices and counting. Trump has a single headquarters and only has started to bring on a few dedicated staffers.
The reality is the Trump team nationally views the Granite State and its four electoral votes as a luxury — one they don’t need to get to the 280 needed to clinch the victory.
“Trump’s not going to play here,” Buckley said.
Scala said the 2024 race is all about Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.
But New Hampshire still could be telling.
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“Come September, if New Hampshire is still a toss-up, very much in play for Trump, then that’s a very bad look for Harris,” Scala said.