According to police in Springfield, Missouri, a 72-year-old man allegedly repeatedly raped an intellectually disabled woman whose mental capacity is that of an eight-year-old child.
Patricio Romero-Enriquez, who was charged by prosecutors with three counts of rape, allegedly told police that he indeed had sex with the woman but insisted it was a consensual act and that the woman was a neighbor of his. He said they had known each other for roughly three years and when they communicated they had to use hand signals.
Breitbart News reported, “An official with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency confirmed to Breitbart News that ICE has placed a hold on the illegal alien so that should he be released from prison at any time, he will be turned over to federal immigration officials for prosecution.”
The alleged actions took place on a bus stop bench; the woman told police. She had informed a bus driver in early October about the alleged assaults. Speaking to police, the woman referred to Romero-Enriquez as “The Mexican,” and said he had forced her into sex. She reportedly added, “He doesn’t understand when I shake my head.”
Because she is intellectually disabled, police interviewed the woman at the Child Advocacy Center, where she told them that she had been raped three times. According to documents, two of the alleged rapes occurred between November 2017 and April 2018; the third occurred later.
Romero-Enriquez is currently being held in the Greene County Jail on a $200,000 bond.
In March 2017, the Springfield News-Leader reported that the website 24/7 Wall Street, basing its decision on the FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, stated Springfield was one of the 25 most dangerous cities in America. But the website’s report seemingly ignored a disclaimer from the FBI that advised people not to rank cities based strictly on the data. Bridget Patton, spokeswoman for the FBI in Kansas City, said not every city in the country was included.
But the News-Leader added, “Even going by that standard, however, the numbers had been trending in an undesirable direction for Springfield before a slight downturn last year. Reports of violent crime in the city more than doubled between 2008 and 2015 before a minimal (0.5 percent) decrease in 2016.”
Springfield’s rate of violent crime reports increased noticeably between 2011 and 2015, from 813 per 100,000 to 1,356 per 100,000. The News-Leader reported, “But the No. 1 driver of violent crime in the city is domestic violence. Of the 2,262 violent crime reports in Springfield in 2015, about 67 percent were aggravated assaults. Police say more than half of those aggravated assaults were domestic assaults.”
Brandi Bartel, executive director of the Victim Center, which offers services to victims of violent or sexual crimes in the Springfield area, said in 2017 that the number of people served by the center had jumped 10% for three years in a row. She added that in 2016, the Victim Center served over 3,800 people.