Atrue atrocity occurred on an urban train in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where a black man identified as Fiston Ngoy raped a woman in front of other passengers, and none of them approached to help the victim, according to police authorities.

Fiston Ngoy, the man accused last week of raping a woman on a commuter train outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently assured police that the sexual encounter had been consensual, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer .

Ngoy, 35, stated that he knew the victim from before and had struck up a conversation with her on the train, which ended in physical contact. He also reiterated that she had initiated the sexual encounter and had never resisted his advances .

As reported by the police on Monday, the rape of a passenger on a SEPTA train lasted about six minutes, while other people not only watched the heartbreaking scene but, strikingly, appeared to record everything with their mobile phones, notes The Philadelphia Inquirer .

Timothy Bernhardt, superintendent of the Upper Darby Police Department, specified this Monday at a press conference that officers were called to the 69th Street terminal around 10 pm last Wednesday, after the rape aboard the train of the Market-Frankford line heading west.

However, the victim denied that version, assuring that the man had ignored his pleas for him to stay away and that he had never seen him before or given him permission to touch her. Meanwhile, the investigation and surveillance footage from the train support that it was a violation.

In an affidavit, the person involved claimed that she had had a few beers after work and then boarded a train heading northeast of Philadelphia on October 13 at 9:15 p.m. A minute later, Ngoy walked in, sat next to her, and began to instigate her. He then  tried to touch her and grabbed her breasts , videos of the case show. “During all this time, the victim was obviously fighting to keep him away from her,” the police report said.

Almost 40 minutes later, at 9:52 p.m., the rape would have occurred. Agents from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) captured Ngoy when the convoy stopped at a stop in Upper Darby Township.

He faces charges of rape, sexual assault and other related crimes. He is currently in custody on a $ 18,000 bond and awaiting a preliminary hearing to be held on October 25. 

Could have been saved from attack

According to reports, the woman was sexually assaulted in the presence of other passengers, who did not dare to prevent the crime. It was a SEPTA employee who reported what happened to the 911 emergency line.

Although it is not clear how many other passengers were in the car, Upper Darby Police Department Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt said that if the other people had intervened, the woman could have been saved from the attack . “Someone could have done something. [That] speaks to where we are as a society and who would allow something like this to happen. So it’s concerning.”

Bernhardt stressed that the citizens who witnessed the attack and instead of intervening recorded the scene with their phones  could be criminally charged , but that will depend on the decision of the authorities once the investigation is concluded. The superintendent did not clarify what charges they could face and added that, despite everything, it is “very difficult to press charges” against those subjects in that context.

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