Gang rape of 11-year-old girl in So. Calif. park, 7 of 8 suspects are minors, say cops

(CBS/AP) MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - An 11-year-old girl was gang raped in a park bathroom in Riverside County earlier this month, authorities revealed Sunday. They also announced that the last suspect in the Riverside County attack was arrested Monday.

Michael Sykes, 19, of Moreno Valley, was arrested at a home there, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, Riverside County sheriff's spokeswoman Courtney Donowho said. Sykes was the eighth person arrested in the gang rape. He and six minor boys accused of raping the girl are believed to belong to a local street gang.

The other boys were arrested shortly after the alleged March 10 attack, along with a girl who is suspected of luring the victim into the bathroom so she could be raped, investigators said.

The 11-year-old was approached by the older girl, whom she knew, at a shopping center, and was led to the park where the male gang members were waiting to assault her, Lt. Chad Bianco told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

"It appears what happened is they were looking for a victim," he said.

"It shocks you to your core," county Sheriff Stan Sniff told the newspaper Sunday. "It never ceases to amaze me how vicious these things can be."

The attack was on the south side of the city near Moreno Valley College.

"As a father - even as a police officer - there are crimes that shock us. This is one of them," said Capt. John Anderson, chief of the Moreno Valley station.

Despite the suspects' purported ties to a local street gang, the attack was in an area where gangs and crime are not a problem, Anderson said.