Led by victim, neighbors trap suspect in sexual assault

By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News

When an Overbrook woman saw the man who sexually assaulted her Saturday morning back in her neighborhood that evening, she ran - not away from him but after him, police and neighbors said.

"I seen this young girl running down the street after this guy and I heard her say 'He raped me! He raped me!' " resident Aaron Edwards recalled.

Edwards, 31, was standing at the corner of 56th Street and Lansdowne Avenue and, along with several other residents, chased the suspect, identified by police as 19-year-old Jamil Harper, trapping him in an alley until officers arrived, he said.

"At 19 you still in your baby stage - how are you going to go and do something like that?" Edwards said.

It was at least the second time this summer that Philadelphians used vigilante justice to hold a sexual-assault suspect until police arrived.

On June 2, an angry Kensington mob pummeled and held down Jose Carrasquillo, who stands accused of raping an 11-year-old girl on her way to school June 1.

Saturday's alleged attack began while the 22-year-old victim was waiting to go to work at a bus stop at 55th Street and Lansdowne Avenue about 5:15 a.m., Special Victims Unit Lt. Al Rossi said.

She was approached by Harper, who demanded her purse, cell phone and cash at gunpoint, according to police.

He then forced her into a nearby alleyway where he sexually assaulted her, Rossi said.

The woman reported the incident to the Special Victims Unit and returned to her neighborhood, police said.

About 6 p.m. the victim saw her alleged attacker in the same area and wearing the same clothes as that morning, according to Rossi.

Along with a group of her friends, the victim ran after Harper and called to the community to help stop him, Edwards said.

Harper was initially walking with another man but when his friend saw the mob coming after Harper, he bolted, Edwards said.

The crowd trapped Harper in an alleyway between 56th and 57th streets that runs parallel to Lansdowne Avenue.

When police arrived, they blocked off the alley at one end and the community blocked it off at the other, Edwards said.

"He was just saying, 'It wasn't me, I didn't do it!' " Edwards recalled Harper claiming.

Harper was roughed up by the crowd during the struggle to keep him in the alley, but he had no open wounds and was checked out at the hospital and immediately released, Rossi said.

Harper, who is from Overbrook but whose exact address is unclear, was charged with sexual assault, robbery, theft, simple assault and weapons violations, police said.

"I got a daughter myself - I hope someone would do the same for my kid," Edwards said, explaining why he joined the effort to detain Harper.

Longtime Overbrook resident Darrell Campbell, 49, agreed and said sexual assaults aren't a crime anybody takes lightly in the neighborhood.

"Everybody is like family around here and that's one thing we don't play," he said. "That's the crazy stuff out here."

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