By
JOSH SAUL
PAIN AND SURVIVAL Stirling, who was sexually assaulted, says the NYPD has a deeply rooted problem with how it handles reports of rape.
portrait by
SASHA ARUTYUNOVA
RACHEAL STIRLING’S NECK THROBBED AS the 6 train rumbled over the tracks. It was late afternoon in September 2014, and Stirling was headed uptown from her East Village apartment. She stepped off the subway on 125th Street in East Harlem and trudged toward a boxy brick building, the headquarters of the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Division.