"I heard screaming, at first I thought they were watching a movie," said Dwan Bouie, an upstairs neighbor on North 7th Street.
What 16-year-old Dwan Bouie actually heard was his downstairs neighbor being attacked, reportedly by four men.
The 27-year-old woman told neighbors she was near the porch in her back yard when the men dragged her into the basement and began beating her and tearing at her clothing.
"I ran downstairs and by the time I got there the men were gone, the four men. She was bleeding and her clothes were ripped," Bouie said.
Bouie says that's when he and the victim's 9-year-old son called 911.
The younger boy in fact, first alerted the older teen to the trouble by running upstairs.
"He took it okay. He was crying because something happened to his mother like that. He was shocked," Bouie said.
The next door neighbors were stunned to learn of the assault.
Julio Mejia says he watched in horror as the bleeding young woman was taken by ambulance from the home.
"Her clothes were a little torn and she seemed like she had been hurt seriously," said Julia Mejia, a next door neighbor.
Newark police say the investigation is in the very early stages. Investigators have conducted a preliminary interview with the victim, which they say has proven inconclusive.
Investigators continued to collect and gather evidence from the scene on Tuesday afternoon.
