Off-duty NYPD cop arrested mid-crime, charged with raping school teacher at gunpoint

Kerry Wills, John Doyle AND Rocco Parascandola New York Daily News 08/19/2011 08:26

Scene where off-duty NYPD officer Michael Pena allegedly raped a woman this morning at Park Terrace West & West 217th St.

A drunken, off-duty cop threatened a teacher at gunpoint Friday, forced her into the backyard of an upper Manhattan building and raped her, cops said.

"Be careful. He has a gun," the 25-year-old victim told officers who responded to a 911 call from a neighbor.

Police confirmed that the suspect in the attack on the 25-year-old woman was Officer Michael Pena, 27, a 3-year NYPD veteran.

Pena was charged with rape and immediately suspended without pay. A source said that he had an "unremarkable record" on the force, DNAinfo.com reports.

The woman was heading to work when Officer Michael Pena stopped her about 6:15 a.m. on the street in Inwood, police said.

The cop, reeking of booze and wearing a red shirt and casual clothes, asked for directions to the No. 1 train and demanded she show him the way, police said.

When she balked, he put his arm around her, opened his jacket to display his 9-mm. handgun and led her away, sources said.

"You're coming with me," he told the woman, said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman.

"She knew he had a gun. She saw it on his hip and later in his hand."

Several blocks later, the assailant forced the woman down a driveway and behind a building on Park Terrace West, where he raped her, police said.

A woman in a nearby building said she heard the attack and called 911 twice in 10 minutes.

"The first time I suspected it was not consensual," she told the Daily News. "The second time because I saw a gun."

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