By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
CHINATOWN — A set of surveillance cameras will be installed at a Chinatown library after a young girl was sexually assaulted there last month by an individual who remains at large, officials said.
The 9-year-old victim was in the children’s section of the Seward Park Library on May 6 when an unidentified man groped her and forced the girl to touch him.
The brazen attack startled many in the community who see their neighborhood as one of the safest in the city, and sparked a forum attended by concerned parents and elected officials earlier this month.
In response, the New York Public Library has agreed to place cameras inside the East Broadway branch by the fall to capture and prevent future incidents, said public relations manager Angela Montefinise.
The cameras will not arrive until the fall because the NYPL’s security team needs to assess the building to find the best locations to install them, Montefinise said.
“At average sites where we do have cameras, we have between six and 12 cameras, so that’s generally the situation,” she explained, noting that the $50,000 to $80,000 cost of the equipment will come from the NYPL’s capital fund.
Cameras are currently installed at 17 branches across the city, but many older libraries like the Seward Park branch were not equipped with them, Montefinise added.
There are currently no plans to place additional security staff at the branch, she said, but more police have been seen patrolling the area since the attack occurred.
The young girl reportedly stepped away from her mother for just a moment when the attacker approached her. No surveillance cameras were available to record the incident, and the branch’s lone security guard was not in the area at the time of the assault.
Police released a sketch of the suspect, who was said to be wearing a black T-shirt, gray cap and carrying a black bag with a strap at the time of the incident. He is described as a male in his mid-40s, standing 5-foot-9 to 6 feet tall, with a medium build and short salt-and-pepper-colored hair.
The NYPD currently does not have any suspects, although the Seventh Precinct has being conducting police lineups to try to identify the attacker, the Lo-Down reported.
At the June 6 community forum, many elected officials spoke about the assault and what measures need to be taken to avoid future attacks.
“Any time any crime happens, it’s clearly a cause for alarm in our community,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “But when you take a library and an innocent child in a place where a child should be safe and under watch and supervised, and a crime of this magnitude happens here to one of our tenders, we really do have to revisit how we protect our citizens.”
