Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990 TAG: 9003222561
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Seven university students have told campus or Radford city police that they have been attacked or threatened by men - on campus, on the streets of Radford and in their apartments. Two of them said they were raped.
Female students are scared. Rumors abound on campus of attacks and rapists on the loose.
"I never go to the library at night anymore," said Judy Maltby, a 20-year-old student who lives off campus. "Everyone's talking about it."
Some students say they are angry, and city police investigators say they are annoyed because two reported attacks on campus last month were kept quiet by the university.
University officials say city police and students always are told about reported attacks on campus, unless the reports are proven untrue. Verified information is never withheld, Dean of Students Bonnie Hurlburt said.
So far this year, these incidents have been reported to campus or city police:
A student said she awoke the morning of Jan. 8 in her off-campus apartment to find a man standing in her bedroom. He fled.
The next morning, another student said a man broke into her apartment near campus and raped her.
Five days later, another student told city police she was walking along a street when she was attacked and dragged to a nearby car. She kicked and screamed and her assailant fled.
A Christiansburg youth has been arrested and indicted on charges arising from those three cases. But attacks continued after the youth's arrest and confinement at a detention home.
A student told campus police that as she was walking on campus at 1:30 a.m. Feb. 10, she was dragged to the ground and raped.
A week later, a student said she awoke in her apartment near campus when a man wearing a ski mask began choking her. She kicked and screamed, and the man fled.
The same day, another student said she was approached by two men wearing ski masks as she got out of her car at an apartment complex near campus. One of the men tried to force her back into the car. She screamed and they fled.
On Feb. 24, a student told campus police that she awoke in her dormitory room to find a paper towel smelling of machine oil draped over her face and a man she didn't recognize leaving the room.
Students have been warned by university and local police to walk in pairs and take precautions.
During the previous three years, students had reported no sexual assaults to campus police. The college was listed as the fifth-safest in the nation last year, according to a survey based on FBI crime reports.
But Maltby, the off-campus student, and others say there is more to their fear than just the threat of being raped. "The rumors make it worse," Maltby said.
The larger problem, students and city police say, is that two of the rumors - about the on-campus incidents reported Feb. 10 and 24 - were true, but the university kept a lid on them.
City police said information about attacks reported to campus police might have helped their investigation of reports by two students who were attacked in separate incidents near campus Feb. 17.
Radford City police Lt. Jackie Roop said he had heard rumors but knew nothing about the two on-campus reports. Roop said university police never told him about the reported Feb. 24 incident and he didn't know about the Feb. 10 rape until two weeks after it was reported.
An angry editorial in The Tartan, a student newspaper, berated the university for withholding information about the two attacks in February. "If rapes are reported, the public must be informed before the culprit is in custody, not after," said the March 1 editorial.
University officials say information is sometimes withheld to protect the victim's right to privacy or to avoid jeopardizing an investigation. Hurlburt, the dean of students, said reports sometimes must be investigated before they can be made public.
University Police Director Toby Phillips said students weren't told of the February reports but that a city police investigator was told about the reported Feb. 10 rape. When asked about that, Radford Police Chief A.C. Earles shook his head and said, "We know nothing about it."
Earles, other Radford police and some students say they think the university may have kept reports of attacks quiet to protect the school's safe-campus image.
Hurlburt says that's not true.
"I understand there is a perception [among the public] of the university to cover up, but that is not the case," she said. B4 B1 RADFORD Radford
by CNB