Police debunk social media rumors of sexual assaults, robberies

The Troy Police Department is dispelling rumors shared on social media of gang sexual assaults and robberies in the city.

“Please know that this information is completely false. Spreading misinformation like this creates unwarranted fear and damages real crime prevention efforts,” the department said on its socialmedia sites.

“The vast majority of sexual assaults involve situations where the victim knows the suspect. Young victims are frequently groomed by their perpetrators, sometimes online, before being assaulted.

“An extremely small amount of ‘stranger’ abductions occur annually around the country. They make up less than one percent of reported abductions. Additionally, these rare events are most often covered by national media outlets.

“Last year, wehad 20 sexual assaults reported to us in Troy. All of these incidents involved perpetrators thatwere known to the victim. This does not make the offense ‘less bad,’ but helps us understand the problem and work more effectively to prevent sexual assault.

“Violent crime is rare in Troy, fortunately. And, it was down by 14 percent in 2019. We had a total of eight robberies last year.

“Any number of sexual assaults, robberies or other incidents of violent crime is too many. Please work with us to spread factual information as misinformation obscures real issues and hinders crime prevention efforts. Look to official sources for confirmation before sharing rumor posts about crime,” Troy police said.

No one filed a report of a sexual assault or robbery with the police, Sgt. Meghan Lehman said.

She declined to disclose where the false sexual assaults and robberies allegedly occurred.

“We are not interested in spreading unfounded information,” she said in an email.