Police are increasing their patrols around the Greenbelt Metro station after a woman was gang raped last week when she left the station.
Up to four suspects remain at large, but police have very little identifying information about them.
The 24-year-old College Park woman was attacked about 4 a.m. Dec. 17 after she exited the Green Line station, said Greenbelt Police Capt. Thomas Kemp.
The men approached her as she walked along Cherrywood Lane, which connects to the station access road. But it did not appear that she had been followed from the train, he said.
The woman, who did not know the men, was then pulled into the nearby woods, raped and assaulted. She was seriously injured and suffered “severe facial trauma,” police said.
The men left the woman there. She then made her way back to the road where she asked joggers to call police, Kemp said.
Police alerted the public about the crime on Thursday afternoon, five days after the attack. “We didn’t feel that there was an imminent threat,” Kemp said of the delay. “It’s not a pattern incident.”
No one has been arrested. He said the woman was very shaken up, so it took detectives longer to get information about the case.
“This is a deeply troubling crime,” said Metro spokesman Dan Stessel. “Our thoughts are with the woman and we hope for her recovery.”
The Greenbelt station ranks as the fifth most dangerous Metro station, according to Metro’s latest crime statistics. Metro Transit Police are increasing their patrols of the station following the attack, Stessel said.
Staff writer Ben Giles contributed.
