Skateworks’ owners speaks out about rape
Aug 20th, 2010 by Bilal Ali
By: Sara Brenton
Skateworks’ owners in Woodlawn are speaking out today after a 12-year-old girl was raped at their roller rink this weekend.
Through their attorney, Paul Gardner, Skateworks wants to address what they consider to be misleading facts about the case.
According to police, the 12-year-old girl says she was dragged into a back storage room and raped by three suspects, 24-year-old Davon Perry, 17-year-old Kadeem Santiful, and 15-year-old Tracey Hankins.
The victim also told police the three men forced her to perform oral sex on them and then they each took turns holding her down and raping her.
At the news conference Thursday morning, Gardner showed surveillance video and claimed the victim’s statement does not match the video. He said the video proves all three suspects were never in the same room at the same time with the girl.
Gardner also says the video doesn’t show the girl being dragged. However, Skateworks does not have a camera that covers the small hallway leading into the storage room. That storage room is where the victim says she was raped.
Gardner said the owners “deeply regrets that some individuals decided to behave in a manor that will not be tolerated by the owners, management, and security.”
Skateworks plans on making some changes to increase security. They plan on changing the locks on all the storage rooms and limiting the amount of people who have keys to the rooms to senior security and management personnel.
Skateworks also plans to add more cameras so that all areas of the roller rink will remain visible at all times.
Gardner says he does believe something happened to the victim in the storage room and added that, by law, a 12-year-old cannot consent to sex.