NEW YORK (AP) --

A 14-year-old girl has joined the list of girls and women who say they were doused with water, stripped of their clothing, groped or robbed by a mob of men in Central Park over the weekend.

At least 24 girls and women, including four tourists, have told police they were attacked by part of the crowd around Sunday's Puerto Rican Day parade on adjacent Fifth Avenue.

Police said the attacks in the park involved as many as 40 men who sprayed water on women, tore at their clothes, groped them and, in some cases, robbed them. Two men were arrested.

The 14-year-old girl said she was leaving the park around 6 p.m. when a gang tore off her shirt and snatched her necklace.

"Sometimes some sick, crazy criminal or drunk kids do sick things," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday.

In an interview on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday, the mayor said he had met with several victims and the attacks would be vigorously investigated.

"It's horrendous," he said. "It shouldn't happen."

All the attacks happened at the southern end of the park.

"Before I knew it, I was surrounded by what seemed to be 20 guys, all pouring water on me, and I was trying to push through," said Stephanie, a woman who was in the midst of the mob with an Associated Press reporter and agreed to discuss the incident on condition that her last name be withheld.

"They were coming at me from all directions, and they were grabbing my butt, groping my butt, and I was screaming and I was trying to get through, trying to get away."

She was soaked with water, but unharmed.

"I was scared. I felt like I had no control, everything happened so fast but yet it felt like slow motion," she said. "I didn't know what would end up happening; that was the scariest part of all."

Some of the victims said police were slow to react when they told officers what had happened to them.

Anne Peyton Bryant, a 29-year-old victim, said an officer she approached "acted like it was nothing" and two others told her to file a report at a nearby police stationhouse. She said she filed the report but no one offered to help her look for the attackers.

The mayor said any officers found to have withheld help would be punished.

"I'm very concerned about the women who got assaulted ... because I feel responsible," Giuliani said.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir said no officers were nearby when the incidents happened, but a witness said he saw police ignoring the mayhem.

"The cops knew what was going on because the girls were mad and angry and walking right past them," David Grandison said in Wednesday's Daily News.

Attorneys for the two men arrested -- David Rowe, 24, and Tremayne Bain, 23 -- said their clients were not involved in the attacks.

"I felt that they were under a lot of pressure to arrest somebody," said David Kapner, Rowe's attorney.

Police were working with several television stations to obtain amateur videotapes of some of the attacks.