Teens assault girl, 17, in basement

With a gun to her neck, a 17-year-old Boston girl was sexually assaulted multiple times Sunday night by a group of as many as 10 teenagers, some of whom she knew, police said yesterday.

Boston police spokeswoman Beverly Ford said that the girl was standing at the Jackson Square MBTA stop in Jamaica Plain around 6 p.m. when she was coerced to go with a male friend to the basement of 265 Centre St., a corner building in the nearby Bromley-Heath housing development, where she was allegedly accosted and forced to perform multiple sexual acts by the youths.

At one point during the assault, Ford said, one of the suspects held a gun to the victim's neck. The victim told investigators she knew some of the suspects from her school, police said. Ford said police are investigating whether the group of attackers was part of a street gang or whether the attack was part of an initiation rite.

Ford said it was unclear whether the suspect who brought the girl to the basement was part of the assault.

At the time of the attack, the girl was visiting the area from another neighborhood in Boston. Her mother called police shortly after the girl arrived home, and a group of detectives, uniformed officers, and crime scene technicians arrived at the building around 7 p.m. Sunday.

Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said one train on the Orange Line was held for a short time at Roxbury Crossing to allow police to board it and search for suspects. By early last night, there had been no arrests.

David Worrell, deputy director of the Bromley-Heath Tenant Management Corporation, was unavailable for comment. The 1,000-unit complex is run by the tenants, but overseen by the Boston Housing Authority.

Residents who live around the complex but who declined to give their names said the doors to 265 Centre St. are not secure. In addition, an investigator said that a video surveillance camera, which could have caught images of the suspects, wasn't working when the alleged assault occurred.

Detectives, however, did recover key evidence from the crime scene, Ford said. "We have a number of suspects," she said. "We expect arrests on this very shortly."

The victim is "cooperating, safe, and working with investigators," Ford said. "This was a targeted individual. This was not a random act of violence. She was picked out."

Detectives and investigators from the Boston Police Department's gang unit are working with MBTA police, Boston Housing Authority police, and Boston Public Schools police.

Details about the assault were limited early yesterday, with police releasing no information until 4 p.m., nearly 22 hours after the attack occurred.

"We need to investigate it first, before we can give out any information," Ford said in defending the delay. "You don't know if in fact it is a rape or something else exists here, so before you panic the public, you have to make sure what you're talking about . . . that this is a rape."

After a City Council hearing to discuss the lack of public warnings after recent sexual assaults on Beacon Hill and in Franklin Park, Deputy Superintendent Margot Hill of the Boston police said she had established a policy requiring that all police district captains be notified when a woman is sexually assaulted by a stranger in any part of the city. It is up to the captains whether to notify community groups; the new policy does not change when the press is informed.

Councilor at Large Maura A. Hennigan, who sponsored the hearing last week, said the local district captain in Jamaica Plain was notified of the assault Sunday night. This case doesn't exactly fit the new policy, because the victim knew some of her alleged attackers, Hennigan said.

"There's a different dynamic here," said Hennigan, adding that she had been told that "arrests are imminent."

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.