Police say disabled teen gang-raped in abandoned apartment

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) - More than 20 men and boys raped and molested a 13-year-old mentally disabled girl for 12 hours after luring her off of her bicycle and into an apartment building, police said Wednesday.

The assailants ranged in age from 12 to 27, authorities said.

''I am not familiar with anything this barbaric,'' said Brody Staud, a police spokesman in this Atlanta suburb.

Some suspects have not been identified, but eight have been arrested and warrants were issued for four others, Cobb County police spokesman Dana Pierce said. They face charges including rape and child molestation.

None of the arrested suspects had lawyers as of Wednesday afternoon.

Police said four men leaving a high school football game on Oct. 13 met the girl on her bike and persuaded her to accompany them to an apartment. They raped her and then took her to an abandoned apartment in the same complex, where as many as 20 other men and boys raped her for up to 12 hours, Staud said.

The girl returned home about 4 a.m. on Oct. 14, her mother told police.

''She told her mother she knew something had happened to her that shouldn't have,'' Pierce said. The victim's mother took her to a hospital, where she was treated and released.

The nature of the girl's mental disability was not disclosed. It wasn't immediately known what led police to the suspects.

Tenants at the apartment complex said they are scared of young men who hang out around the complex, made up of two-story brick buildings with several units in each structure.

Maria Capiz, 18, said she does not let her son play outside for more than 30 minutes a day.

''I don't trust it here,'' Capiz said. ''The teen-agers here are crazy. I don't want what happened to that little girl happening to me or to my niece or my son. Everybody here is scared of these teen-agers.''

''If somebody can do such a horrible thing to a child - only 13 years old - than what next?'' added Shataquia Lewis.

Sexual assaults against the disabled are probably underreported because victims are unable to explain what happened or are perceived as unreliable witnesses, said Jennifer Bivins, a victim advocate at the Southern Crescent Sexual Assault Center in Jonesboro.

Alan McEvoy, an expert on sexual violence and professor of sociology at Wittenberg University in Ohio, said the disabled also are more easily manipulated into believing they are somehow at fault.

''They're less likely to have a line of support ... more likely to be confused or disoriented,'' McEvoy said.