UNITED STATES: Where was Security? Woman, 22, Raped on Deserted Denver Airport Concourse - and Janitors Ignored the Attack

A woman was allegedly raped on the floor of a deserted airport concourse while two janitors walked past - and did nothing.

Former U.S. marine Noel Bertrand, 26, was arrested on suspicion of felony sexual assault and assault after two airline workers saw the violent attack through a window at Denver International Airport and called police.

The 22-year-old, who was on her way to interview at a convent, said her attacker threw her to the ground, ripped her clothes off and pounded her head on the floor.

She wept as she told 7News: 'I couldn't talk. I couldn't say anything. He grabbed me and held my neck to the ground. I started to stress out, and I couldn't breathe very well.

'I started to tense up and I started to get an asthma attack.'

She was left with bruises to her legs and a black eye after the attack, which took place just after midnight on Tuesday morning.
The woman, who is from Oregon, decided to spend the night at the airport because she missed her connecting flight to Illinois and didn't have enough money for a hotel.

She said she went for a drink at a bistro on Concourse A, where Bertrand struck up a conversation with her because both are from Portland.

When the bar closed at midnight, she left to find a seat. But Bertrand allegedly followed her down the escalator to Concourse A below, sat down next to her - and asked if he could kiss her.

She told News7: ''I sit up and he's leaned in and he asks, "Can I kiss you?" And when I tell him that's too forward, before I could finish my statement, he had already pulled me in to kiss him.

'And he forcefully held me there. And I'm sitting there with my neck kinked down, and I'm already frantic.'

The woman claims Bertrand then grabbed the strings of her hooded sweatshirt and pulled her off the seat before throwing her to the floor.

He allegedly pounded her head on the floor again and again.

She told News7: 'I couldn't reach anywhere. I couldn't touch anything and I couldn't breathe. He told me to put myself in a position for him. He pulled my pants down and proceeded to assault me from behind.'

She said the attack lasted ten minutes - during which time two janitors walked past, including a woman, but they looked away and did nothing.

Deserted: The woman said two janitors walked past during the attack in concourse A, shown here
The woman said: 'Another employee walked by, a female, and she looked and she walked away and kept walking. I was just so upset that I couldn't focus on what was going on. I just kept getting my head thrown down.'

At last two airport workers on the tarmac outside spotted her desperate struggle through the window and rang police.

She claimed: 'One of the officers approached him from behind and pulled him off of me. As they were shouting when they were coming over, he wasn't stopping. They had to pull him off of me.

'He was trying to tell them that we were just having sex. It was a lover's quarrel. A woman getting beaten on the ground is not a lover's quarrel.'

The woman said she came forward because she wanted to help protect other lone female travellers.

She said: 'It's very important that if you are travelling alone, and you don't have the security of someone with you, that you have the security of the facility that you're in.

'Especially if it's a government facility like the Denver airport. You should be comfortable being alone. It's hard to say that it was even avoidable. It could have happened to anyone.'

Laura Coale, an airport spokesman, said the janitors are contractors. The airport is investigating whether any of its employees failed to report the attack.

She insisted the airport is safe for women travelling alone, even at night.

She told 7News: 'I would say, absolutely. I don't think this one incident represents the entire airport based off one individual's alleged actions. There are 30,000 people working at the airport. And police did respond.'

Bertrand was being held at Denver jail last night on a $10,000 bond.

His grandmother answered the phone at his house on Tuesday, and told 7News her grandson was a former Marine.

According to Leatherneck, a Marine magazine, he served as a corporal at U.S. embassies including Dublin in Ireland and Caracas in Venezuela.