By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
After nearly five months, university police have not made any
arrests in connection with two Jan. 10 sexual assaults in
Schoenberg and Boelter Halls.
Police can only make an arrest after they have gathered enough
evidence against the suspect. The process leading up to the arrest
can be a difficult one for police, potential suspects who may or
may not be the actual assailant, and for the victims
themselves.
UCPD officers said they have questioned a number of suspects,
including one student who has been identified by the Schoenberg
victim and stopped by police on three separate occasions in the
last month and a half.
“A number of individuals resembling the suspect in this
crime have been contacted by police as a result of calls and tips
from victims or witnesses,” said UCPD Detective Terry Brown,
who is leading the investigation.
The student, whose name is not being released to protect his
identity, said police gave him no assurances it would be the last
time he would be questioned, even though he has not been charged
with the crime.
A 5-foot-4-inch African American man weighing 160 pounds and
sporting a clean-shaven head, the student said he has repeatedly
been mistaken for the bathroom sex assailant whose police composite
sketches have been posted around campus since the attacks.
On the evening of Jan. 10, a man described as an African
American in his late 20s to early 30s, 5-foot-5 to 5-foot-10, and
weighing 170-200 pounds, sexually assaulted two women in rest rooms
in Schoenberg and Boelter Halls within one hour.
Although the student has not been charged for the assaults, UCPD
Lt. Manny Garza said he has not been eliminated from the pool of
suspects.
According to Garza, a suspect can only be eliminated through the
discovery of physical evidence or the arrest of the actual suspect,
which in turn eliminates all other suspects.
“The police department is using DNA as one investigative
tool,” Brown said “I cannot discuss additional evidence
at this time.”
When appropriate, Brown said investigative reports and evidence
will be presented to the district attorney’s office.
According to the student, the pictures UCPD posts on campus
perpetuate further scrutiny of African American men at the
university, because “they look like a lot of people on
campus.”
“The case should have been handled with more sensitivity
instead of plastering the picture all around campus,” said a
friend of the student.
Police said they are not randomly targeting the student, but
only responding to calls from the victim who was assaulted in
Schoenberg.
“We are only doing our job,” Garza said. “(The
victim) feels pretty confident he is the same suspect.”
The victim’s identity is unknown because by state law,
police cannot release information about sexual assault victims.
Garza confirmed that the victim was able to see the assailant
during the course of the encounter, even though he initially
attacked her from behind.
In mid-April, after the victim called police, the student said
he was questioned, frisked, then handcuffed ““ for an
unrelated traffic warrant ““ in front of the Ackerman bus
stops, in plain view of many on-lookers.
A month later, as the student placed a UCLA decal sticker on the
back of his car in Lot 6 ““ which he received for volunteering
at the Academic Advancement Program Scholar’s Day ““ he
was stopped again by UCPD.
“I was full of Bruin pride from the speeches given … and
as I put a UCLA sticker on my car, I felt good that I made it to
UCLA,” the student said.
The student acknowledged he did not cooperate with police.
“I said to police, “˜What the hell do you want with
me? Leave me alone,'” he said.
Police handcuffed the student because he was uncooperative and
was invading their space, Garza said.
“Officers feared for their safety and feared that he might
have been combative with them,” he said.
After half an hour, the student was asked to turn to his left
then to his right side, he said. Later, he realized he was
providing his profiles to a victim of the the campus assaults.
A patrol car with tinted back windows drove past the suspect
three times in the parking lot, “creeping,” the student
said.
UCPD conducted a “field show-up,” Garza said, where
the Schoenberg victim was transported to the location of the
detained student to identify or eliminate him as the suspect.
On Wednesday, police said the Schoenberg victim informed UCPD
that she had again seen her attacker in a Franz Hall classroom.
After the student identified himself to police, he was not
questioned further, Garza said.
“We did not want to exacerbate what is already a difficult
situation,” he said.