Personal safetyDHS HQ cafeteria employee claims she was repeatedly raped on the job

Published 14 February 2013

A cafeteria employee claims she was sexually assaulted and raped several times at the cafeteria of the DHS headquarters building in Northwest Washington, D.C. The D.C. police is now investigating.

A woman claims she was sexually assaulted inside the DHS headquarters building in Northwest Washington, D.C.y, and   the D.C. police is now investigating.

WJLA News reports that  on 9 February, a 32-year-old woman who worked in the cafeteria of the DHS facility told officers that she was sexually assaulted in the coat room by her supervisor. The woman alleges her supervisor shoved her face-first into a wall in the room and proceeded to rape her. The woman said the incident occured last spring inside the building and has happened numerous times since.

The buildingis surrounded by tight security 24-hours a day.

“Security is not letting outside people in,” George Krumbhaar, a resident of the neighborhood where the facility is located, told WJLA. “I don’t think there’s that much difference in security in the way employees are treated.”

“I think it can happen anywhere. It should be a safe place since it is Homeland Security,” Sara Ware, another resident, told WJLA.

DHS has released a statement in response to the allegations. “Late last year, a contract employee assigned to the Nebraska Avenue Complex cafeteria was arrested by the DHS Federal Protective Service following allegations of sexual abuse and assault by a fellow contract employee. The individual has been charged in superior court and has been ordered to stay away from both the complainant and DHS property.”

“That is especially surprising,” Alexandria Shults told WJLA News. “That is Homeland Security and the government in general.”