The managing partner of Kim Tam Park near Akron, Ohio said he was “shocked and appalled” Monday after learning of allegations that employees staged a mock rape in a haunted house on park grounds.
Earlier, Sarah Lelonek told local ABC News affiliate WEWS that a man in a mask “pushed down” her boyfriend, Ryan Carr, while the pair visited Akron Fright Fest at the park.
“She comes over and yells, ‘Stop! What are you doing? That’s my boyfriend,’” Carr recalled Lelonek saying. He then described the masked person’s response: “‘Not anymore, he’s mine now. I’m going to rape him,’ and then he started thrusting against me.”
In a statement provided to HuffPost, Jeremy Caudill said that while investigations into the incident were ongoing “there is no place for anything like this at our park.”
“Obviously, rape is a horrible act,” he said. “Even a mock rape scene has no place as part of any entertainment.”
According to the park, the fright fest consists of three “all age haunted houses” and three “adult only” haunted houses that require visitors to sign a waiver before entering.
Carr and Lelonek are adamant that the event occurred in an all-ages haunted house.
Caudwill said that employees “who worked in the area where the incident allegedly occurred have been suspended” and additional security will monitor the site.
“We want to donate portions of our proceeds from the following two weekends to the Rape Crisis Center of Medina and Summit Counties,” he added. “I will be getting in touch with the leaders there to organize that donation.”
In an earlier statement posted to Facebook, the park said that the “rape scenario isn’t something we thought up or made up, we are and have been looking into what happened.”
Lelonek and Carr’s experience is similar to that of a 16-year-old visitor, whose mother told Fox 8 that her son “was with a group of friends going through three non-waiver houses.”
“He said he was thrown onto a mattress by some guy in a pig mask. The guy was “humping” him, demanded he squeal like a pig and then forcefully took his legs and was trying to pull them apart,” she said. “This is not something that belongs in a haunted house.”
Akron Fright Fest has been touted as one of the first “R-rated” haunted house experiences in the city.
This story has been updated with a statement from Jeremy Caudill.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/akron-fright-fest-haunted-house-mock-rape_us_5bc52dd9e4b0d38b58 ... and provided by video-cutter-online.com
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