The victim's uncle, "Rickey," spoke exclusively with Eyewitness News.
The victim, a young mother of two, is reportedly too afraid to return to her neighborhood, terrified her attackers will come back a second time. Her uncle is outraged by what happened, pointing the finger directly at police.
"When I hear what happened to my niece, it felt like someone just ripped my heart at," Rickey said.
Rickey's 27-year-old niece was brutally raped and beaten. She is too scared to talk, so he says he will be her voice.
"Emotionally, she's traumatized," he said. "Psychologically, I'm sure she's reliving this thing over and over and over again."
The incident happened Wednesday afternoon around 3 p.m. Rickey says his niece got a call from a friend who came to her fourth-floor apartment followed by two masked men.
"Once they got access to the apartment, that's when they began to atrociously assault my niece," Rickey said. "They tied her up, shoved a sock in her mouth, began to pistol-whip her, beat her with an extension cord."
He says the friend was also tied up, but not hurt. Residents say strangers come and go constantly, in part thanks to the broken intercom and unlocked door.
"I was a little bit scared, because I was home and I wasn't sure if it was a random thing, or if it was premeditated," one resident said. "Because if it was random, it could've been me."
But sources say the attack does not appear to be random. The victim was reportedly cooperating with police in a separate, ongoing investigation. Rickey believes this incident was payback.
"Those police officers knew that there was a potential of my niece being hurt," he said. "They did not protect her. They failed her."
Sources tell Eyewitness News that the suspects' images may have been caught by surveillance cameras.
"People that live amongst us in society that commit crimes as heinous as this should no longer be allowed to live among us in society," Rickey said. "They should be locked away."
By a stroke of luck, the victim's children, two little girls, were not home at the time of the rape. They were in school.
Eyewitness News contacted the Jersey City Police Department and the Prosecutor's Office, but have not received a reply.
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WEB PRODUCED BY: Bill King
