Groping Crisis at AU, 2004, by Anonymous

From MemoryArchive

Who: Anonymous
What: Groping Crisis on Campus
When: 2004
Where: American University

In the fall semester of 2004, a scourge descended upon the American University campus in upper Northwest Washington, DC. A groper was on the loose. The first time I heard that a groping had occurred was when I heard two girls talking about it in the Mary Graydon Center, a commons area on the American University Campus. Details were sketchy, but they seemed to be saying that it occurred at night, in a poorly lit area, during which a man grabbed a girls breast and ran off. Shortly afterwards, I read something to this effect in the police blotter in The Eagle, the American University student newspaper.

After the first groping occurred, it seemed that every other day, some sort of sexual assault occurred. They all occurred in areas that were poorly lit, and not frequently traveled at night. The campus police began putting out fliers, asking anyone that knew anything to contact them. One flier in particular asked if anyone had seen someone carrying a broken umbrella, and wearing dark clothing. The police also stepped up their presence at night, especially in poorly lit areas. Things quickly snowballed, and it seemed that the entire female population was worried about having their private parts groped. The campus police held a special town hall meeting to get a handle on "how the students felt." I didn't go, but it seems that the students who did wanted to know what the police were doing to stop the gropings, and were frustrated that the culprit had not been stopped yet.

Eventually, the gropings stopped. To the best of my knowledge the offender is still at large.