4 arrested, 1 sought in Brooklyn gang rape of 18-year-old girl

BROWNSVILLE, Brooklyn (WABC) -- Police are still trying to find the one suspect on the loose after the alleged gang rape of an 18-year-old in Brooklyn.

Four of the five suspects, all between the ages of 14 and 17, were taken into custody in connection with the Thursday night incident at a playground in Brownsville.

The four teens are being questioned at the special victims unit. According to sources, the boys are telling investigators that they did not rape the victim and that anything that happened was consensual.

"Oh my God, it could have been one of my children, one of my girls," one neighbor said. "And all the little girls running around here, it's just sad, very sad."

The outraged community is speaking out and looking for answers after the horrific incident, in which the victim says five men took turns raping her, and that she screamed for help but no one stopped.

"I was just really scared," the victim said. "I didn't know what to do. I was in a panic mode."

On Saturday evening, police released surveillance video showing the suspects from inside a bodega not far from Osborne Park, where police say the brutal attack unfolded just after 9 p.m.

The suspects have only been identified as a 17-year-old, two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old. Police were stopping people in the community, filling them in on the gruesome details and getting the word out, and it worked.

On Sunday evening, parents of two of the suspects brought their children into the 73rd Precinct, and police later arrested the other two. Detectives are now talking to all of them at the special victim's unit, with the fifth suspect still out there.

The victim's father says he was with his daughter at the time, drinking near the handball courts, and that the group approached and one pulled out a gun, pointed it at his face and ordered him to leave.

"If I would have stood there and fought them (I would have died)," he said. "Because they meant business. They weren't playing around."

He said he first ran to a bodega, the same store where the suspects had been, for help.

"'I need help, call the cops, my daughter is getting raped,'" he said. "They didn't want to call the cops for me."

The clerk at that bodega tells Eyewitness News that the man was frantic and not making sense.

Eyewitness News obtained surveillance video of his frantic search for help. After he left the bodega, he appears to motion to someone behind the counter at a second location that he needed to use the phone. Next, he appears to ask a customer to use his cell phone. That man at first pulled out his phone and handed it to the father, but he quickly took it back.

The father then left and spotted two NYPD officers outside, who ran back to the park. But by then, the suspects were gone.

Late Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio shot down critics who believe police didn't act fast enough, pointing out how valuable the surveillance video found by detectives was to the case.

"That is why we have four of the five arrested, and that is why we will have the fifth soon," he said.

Charges for the four teens are currently pending.