NEW YORK CITY WOMAN SAYS ONLOOKERS LAUGHED AND RECORDED AS SHE WAS RAPED ON CONEY ISLAND FOLLOWING JULY FOURTH FIREWORKS

New York Post

 

NYC woman says onlookers laughed, recorded as she was raped on Coney Island after July 4th fireworks: ‘Nobody helped’

By Georgett Roberts, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, Patrick Reilly and Larry Celona

Published July 10, 2025, 9:21 a.m. ET

 

A Brooklyn woman alleged she was raped on Coney Island while celebrating the Fourth of July — and bystanders just laughed and filmed instead of trying to save her.

 

Melissa Harris, 25, told CBS News she tripped over a walking mat on the beach around 3 a.m. that night while trying to escape a man with “bad vibes” marching menacingly toward her.

 

“He saw that I was on the floor and that’s when he put his face between my legs, and I started screaming and everyone started laughing and recording me,” said the Brooklyn native, who allowed herself to be identified in the hopes of finding her attacker. “Nobody helped. Nobody stopped.”

 

At one point, a light from a golf cart shone on her and her attacker — but the driver just drove off without intervening, said Harris, who has reported the attack to the NYPD, The Post confirmed.

 

When she managed to free herself and leave the beach, her assailant followed her down Stillwell Avenue and raped her, she said.

 

“He bent me over over here, and he raped me,” she told CBS, pointing toward a planter just beside some of the famed boardwalk rides.

 

“My face hit the bushes. I couldn’t do anything … I was just really scared and then I was screaming for help,” Harris said.

 

“I was just terrified, and I couldn’t fight back,” she said, saying there were also witnesses for the second part of her nightmarish ordeal.

 

Harris said she had arrived at the boardwalk around 11 p.m. Friday after the fireworks had finished. She shared video with CBS News showing a crowd of people standing around a bonfire before the attack.

 

She told News12 Brooklyn that she had been hanging out with a group of people she had just met — and the assailant was one of them.

 

After the assaults, she claims, the group ran off.

 

She said she’s sharing her story in order to get the man off the streets.

 

The NYPD did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for additional information.

AH: Don't let evil take place.