Last weekend, three separate students reported sexual assaults on the Boston University campus to the BU Police Department, according to police officials.
Due to the influx of sexual assaults in the past month, BUPD and the Boston Police Department are continuing to remind students and residents to be vigilant, but not to be alarmed.
The BUPD, the BPD and the State Police reminded students and Bostonians last week at a press conference to be wary of the recent hike in sexual assaults. Earlier this month, a 31-year-old man named Walter Mains raped, sexually assaulted and accosted three separate women on one day in Dorchester.
They also reminded Bostonians that a man suspected to be a serial sexual predator on the Boston Esplanade from 2006 until 2009 has still not been caught.
The BPD, however, does not intend to cause alarm because it is unnecessary, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll in an email. She said police only stress vigilance.
Although there has been an increase of occurrences in the news, Driscoll said, reports of sexual assaults involving strangers are less frequent throughout the city than domestic sexual assaults or sexual assaults amongst acquaintances.
Despite the surge of sexual assaults in Boston this month, crime statistics show that as of Sept. 26, Boston has only received four additional reports of rape and attempted rape in 2011, according to the BPDNews website.
Regardless, students said they continue to feel safe, at least in the campus areas of Boston.
Dillon Payne, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she is less fearful about the sexual assaults than her colleagues from less urban areas would be.
“I’ve grown up in the Boston area, so I know how to handle myself in city-situations,” Payne said. “But there are so many people at BU who come from so many different backgrounds and don’t know how to use city-smarts.”
Elise Greenberg, a CAS junior, said she is concerned because she has always thought that Boston was a safe place.
“For the most part, I feel comfortable because the only place I’m really walking around at night is Commonwealth Avenue, and that’s a fairly safe place,” she said.
Other students, including College of Communication sophomore Allison Kenney, said they are already aware of how to protect themselves.
“Usually I don’t walk alone too far or on the Esplanade, but you don’t want to have that at the top of your mind when you go out and be thinking that somebody’s going to be out to get you,” Kenney said.
BUPD Captain Robert Molloy recommended students stay sharp even if they are with people with whom they feel comfortable.
“Most of the cases that we see are with somebody that the victim knows or somebody that they’ve just met at a party or maybe a friend of a friend,” he said. “We don’t have too many stranger-type forcible sexual assaults reported near campus.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
