Assault attempted in Frist bathroom

An unknown man attempted to assault an undergraduate female student Sunday night in the women's bathroom on the 100-level of Frist Campus Center. The student is fine, according to University officials, but the assailant had not been located as of early this morning.

Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Steven Healy declined to elaborate on what happened, but said, "I'd call it an attempted assault."

Officials are looking for the individual, whom they describe, based on interviews with the victim and witnesses, as a Spanish-speaking man of medium skin tone in his 20s. He was also described as about 5'6" and 160 to 170 pounds, with brown eyes and dark brown or black hair and a "nervous twitch" in his right shoulder.

The man was said to be wearing a beige short-sleeved shirt, brown cargo shorts, brown work boots and a light blue baseball cap with the word "Guatemala" embroidered on it. Witnesses reported he was wearing the hat backward.

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) first received a report of the attempted assault at about 10:28 p.m. from the Frist Welcome Desk. DPS responded with four units and also notified Borough Police, which responded with three squad cars. Some units went directly to Frist while others began canvassing the area around it, Healy said.

Some 20 minutes before the attempted assault, workers at the Welcome Desk were approached by another female student and told that a "sketchy guy" was near the ATM in the northwest corner of the 100-level.

The student who made the report described the man as Hispanic and speaking Spanish. Given no additional description or apparent evidence that the man was a threat, no call was made to DPS.

At around 10:25, students on the ramp outside of Frist reported hearing screams coming out of the two rectangular windows near the ceiling of the bathroom.

Upon hearing the screams, some students rushed to the bathroom from inside the building, reportedly scaring away the assailant and giving the student a chance to run into Cafe Vivian.

Another female student reportedly ran out of the bathroom to the Welcome Desk, where she told workers there that a man, who had spoken to her in Spanish, was attacking a woman in the bathroom.

A student worker at the Welcome Desk then called DPS, providing the first notification of the incident to authorities. The student worker stayed on the phone with DPS until officers arrived on the scene about three minutes later.

"I can tell you that there were two people in the restroom and that we have one victim," Healy said.

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The student who reported the incident to the Welcome Desk said the man dropped to the floor and crawled into the victim's stall, according to students present at the time of the report.

The attacker reportedly pushed the student in the stall against the stall's locked door and began to grope her, several students said. When the woman began screaming, one student said, the assailant fled "because people came to see what was happening."

Witnesses saw the alleged assailant run up the stairs closest to the bathroom and out of Frist toward Washington Road and Prospect Avenue.

Once the victim escaped the bathroom, she ran to Cafe Vivian, where she had reportedly been studying with friends and her boyfriend. Students in the area reported that the student ran in "screaming hysterically."

Another student who was outside the bathroom at the time of the attack and immediately after said that once in Cafe Vivian, the student appeared to be "physically okay but emotionally distraught."

DPS officials, once on the scene, took the victim to McCosh Health Center. Three of the student's friends, upon hearing of the attempted attack, attempted to visit her at McCosh, but were not allowed in. They left a note and were later able to contact the student on her cell phone.

At about 10:55 p.m., two individuals who seemed to match the description of the suspect were temporarily detained outside McCosh pending identification by the victim. The student said that neither of the men was the one who attempted to assault her, Healy said, and the individuals were subsequently released.

Individuals with more information are being urged to contact DPS at 258-3134.