Temple University students received an alert from campus security late Sunday morning after a student was sexually assaulted in a private residence around 2 AM.
The incident occurred on the 1500 block of 15th Street, and police were called about an hour and half later, according to Campus Safety Director Charles Leone.
“We can’t say with 100% certainty ‘this is the person, this is who,’ and that sort of thing, so we decided to put out a message to the community letting them know that this occurred,” said Leone.
The email detailed the suspect as a black male, standing close to six feet tall, with a full dark beard and short hair.
The incident this past weekend is the third reported to Temple Police this semester according to Leone. But this uptick in sexual assaults isn’t necessarily because they have been occurring more frequently.
“It’s hard to differentiate sometimes, are we actually seeing an increase in incidents or are we seeing an increase in reporting or a combination to both?” said Leone.
Both Temple Police and WOAR have teamed up to create online reporting services, giving students more opportunity to come forward after a trauma such as sexual assault.
Despite the increased awareness and options to report, some students are still shocked about the weekend incident.
“I was definitely shocked, you know Temple’s a pretty safe campus overall, but like the fact that things like this still happen is kind of crazy,” said Jay Mohabir.
“It’s definitely frightening, especially on Halloween weekend because everybody is out and it’s very scary,” said junior Emily Tobin.
As of now, no suspect has been taken into custody, but Leone says that Temple Police have some leads, and “someone that we’re [Temple Police] looking at that was identified.”
Anyone with any information should contact the Temple police at (215)-204-1234, or submit an anonymous online report through Temple’s Title IX coordinator.
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