'Please Call The Police': Alleged Hostage Victim Used Grubhub To Get Help
An alleged hostage victim used Grubhub to alert a restaurant to her situation, which in turn contacted police and got her rescued.
Police were alerted to a report of the rape of the 24-year-old victim at approximately 6:20 a.m. on Sunday in the Bronx, a spokesperson for the New York City Police Department told Oxygen.com on Wednesday over email.
The victim had met the man — who police identified as Kemony Royal, 32 — in person after first talking online for months, according to WABC. But when they met, he allegedly turned violent, threatening her, raping her and assaulting her over the course of hours.
He also allegedly wouldn’t allow the woman to use her phone, except to order food. She then ordered a breakfast sandwich and a burger around 5:00 a.m. from the Chipper Truck Cafe in Yonkers and tried to make it clear to the restaurant that she needed help.
“This morning around 5 am a girl was saved from a 5-hour hostage situation,” the Chipper Truck Cafe i stated on Facebook on Sunday. “She ordered a delivery through Grubhub to our restaurant and added this note.”
The note stated, “Please call the police his going to call me when u delivered come with the cones [cops] please don't make it obvious.”
"She was basically saying to bring the police with the delivery," Alice Bermejo, who co-owns Chipper Truck Cafe with her husband, told WABC. An employee noticed the note on the screen and contacted her husband.
"They'd seen the note on the order, and they called my husband, said 'What should we do?' and he was like, 'Call the police, can't take any risks, better be safe than sorry,'" she said.
She credits the victim for quick thinking.
"I can't even imagine. I hope someday we get to meet her," she said.
Shortly after police arrived and took the woman's report, they arrested Royal on multiple charges including rape, strangulation, unlawful imprisonment, menacing, sexual abuse and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police also told Oxygen.com that they had been looking for him in connection with another attempted rape just days earlier.
On the afternoon of June 15, they said, police were informed that Royal had allegedly tried to rape a 26 year-old woman; they had not yet been able to locate him to effect the arrest. He charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse and assault in connection with that incident on Sunday when he was arrested in connection to the alleged hostage situation.
It’s not clear if Royal has a lawyer.
