Inspired

I was sexually assaulted 5 months ago on June 30th 2014. I had the idea to take myself and two of my other friends bridge jumping, so I feel as if I’m to blame. We got there and we noticed a strange man who was by himself staring at us. But we thought nothing of him. The man started talking to us and taking pictures which we thought was pretty creepy.

The man was an African American man who was about 24 years old. We thought that we were scared of him because we were just being a little bit racist. Turns out we should of trusted our gut. He started putting all of our clothes that we took off before we got in the water into large garbage bags. We asked him to stop and why he was doing that and he said he didn’t want our stuff to get wet. Obviously he was trying to hide and get rid of our stuff. By then we knew it was time to go.

My friend started to call her dad but he noticed and he started getting aggressive. He started to yank on her hand to try to stop her from calling her father. Then I tried calling 911 behind my back but I pressed the wrong button because I didn’t want to make it obvious that I was calling the police.

Then as we tried to leave, he popped out of a bush and started asking us things like “why are you leaving”, “where are you going so fast.” He asked us how old we were and I said 11 because I thought that it would help turn him off because he wouldn’t rape a younger girl. He didn’t care. He started touching all three of our breasts because we were still in bathing suits. Then he asked us if we’ve ever seen any guy parts and we said no, again because we thought it would help. After that he asked us if he could touch us and we said no but he wasn’t fazed by our answer. He was on a mission.

One of my friends tried to run away while me and my other friend stood there in shock. He chased after her, picked her up by the neck, threw her to the ground and dragged her back to the spot we were at. After that he told us if we screamed or tried to run away, he would kill us. One of my friends was on her period so he didn’t do anything to her. My other friend and I weren’t so lucky. He touched us both down there multiple times and basically did everything he could except for rape us. Then he started playing with himself and took out his penis.

Then I had a chance to run, some guy walked buy with his dog and I screamed and I ran out to him. My friends followed. This man brought us to his house and got us water, blankets, and cleaned our cuts. We met his wife and they helped us calm down. I called the police and an ambulance came for us. They took us to a special hospital where they had a rape and sexual assault victims clinic. They ran so many labs on us and we had so many police officers talk to us.

That night had changed my life forever. Ever since then I am a completely different person. I feel empty and dirty inside. I am forever grateful for the man who walked by because he saved our life. Our sexual assaulter would’ve killed us.

After our incident, he assaulted one other girl who was 19 and then got caught. He is now in jail waiting for our court date which is in May. I am completely terrified to see him in court. He is also an illegal immigrant, so after his sentence is over, he will be deported back to Jamaica. He has 14 different charges on him all together. I have seeked help. I share my story with as many people as I can and who I trust. I go to therapy to help cope with the pain and I am open to learning different methods of healing.

I watched Brave Miss World recently and it inspired me to email you my story. For english class, 4 of my classmates including myself are creating a documentary based on my story and how people deal with grief and how their relationships are effected. Watching your documentary has really assured me that everything will be fine. I look up to you because I can relate to you and you inspire me to share my story with others. Thank you for everything.