At about 2:45 a.m. Sunday, more than 10 non-University people committed a string of assaults from William Street to High Rise. Three students were sent to the hospital after the incidents.
According to Director of Public Safety Maryann Wiggin, the first altercation began when the group attacked a student near the corner of Hamlin and William Streets, close to the CRT Early Care and Education preschool. Neither Public Safety nor Middletown Police would not release the name of this student.
Sam Leitner ’05 approached the group as he was walking down Hamlin Street toward his LoRise apartment. He said that he did not realize at first that the group was kicking the student.
The student being attacked got up and asked the assailants to stop. Leitner then spoke to the group, causing one of them to turn around and face him.
“I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt,’” Leitner said.
Leitner continued to walk and a group member followed him and hit him in the back of the head. He said he then ran toward the LoRise area, and the entire group caught him at the group of apartments closest to William Street.
“They knocked me onto the ground and hit me with a baseball bat,” Leitner said.
He said that one had grabbed his jacket, which he shook off before running through the LoRises toward High Rise shouting for help.
As he ran, Leitner passed Dave Ziegler ’05, Matt Lewis ’05 and Jenna St. Martin ’05, who were talking near the top of the stairs in between the LoRise A, B, and E apartments where they live. The assailants stopped pursuing Leitner and instead proceeded to confront Ziegler, Lewis and St. Martin.
“After I turned the corner into the [High Rise] parking lot, I didn’t see anyone,” Leitner said. He then called Public Safety from a blue light phone.
“The kids who were chasing [Leitner] turned around and faced us,” Ziegler said. “One of them came up to me and was like, ‘Yo, are you cool with this? You saw nothing.’ And then he was thinking about it and he was like, ‘If you’re cool with this, give me your watch.”
“We were pretty dumbfounded by that,” Ziegler said.
According to Ziegler, the person who asked for his watch then pulled out a switchblade and threatened him, Lewis, and St. Martin. Ziegler said that the assailant with the switchblade was restrained by one of the attackers’ companions.
“We kind of didn’t respond to that,” Lewis said. “I just got the impression they were going to leave.”
Lewis said he was then hit with what he thought was a bat in the arm and the head, which caused him to fall down the stairs.
Ziegler said he was also hit on his right hand and his arm with what he believed was a bat.
St. Martin was not attacked.
Lewis said another assailant who was standing over him prepared to hit him again when Public Safety arrived and the assailants ran in the direction of the housing complex next to LoRise.
“It’s really good that Public Safety showed up when they did,” Ziegler said.
“They were great,” Lewis said about Public Safety. “They hung with us at the hospital for most of the time we were there.”
Leitner, Ziegler, and Lewis were escorted to Middlesex Hospital by the Middletown Police Dept. after answering questions about the attack. Leitner had several cuts and scrapes in addition to a large bump on his head. Lewis also had a bump on his head and Ziegler and Lewis both had injured arms. All three students said they waited about three hours for treatment at the hospital and were not released until about 6 a.m.
“I didn’t expect that to happen on this campus,” Ziegler said. “Even when you do hear about all these things you don’t really pay attention to the Public Safety alerts. At least I don’t. It’s just the random nature of the whole thing, the random violence doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“I still believe that Wesleyan is a fairly safe campus,” Leitner said.
A Public Safety alert sent out Sunday morning said the suspects were African Americans about 16 to 21 years old.
“There were too many people to remember anything and it was too dark,” Leitner said.
According to Wiggin, the suspects were denied entrance to an on-campus party 15 to 20 minutes before the attack on William Street. The students hosting the party–members of Alpha Phi Alpha–and a Public Safety officer doing rounds both asked the group to leave.
According to Vice President of Psi Upsilon Tobias Wasser ’06, Alpha Phi Alpha used Psi U as their venue. He described the group as six to 10 males who were verbally harassing each other, threatening to stab each other.
“They did everything right,” Wiggin said of the party hosts.
Wiggin also noted that most instances of assaults on students occur on weekends between 12 and 3 a.m. in the vicinity of parties.
In the wake of Saturday’s assaults, a Public Safety officer was stationed in the High Rise/ LoRise area from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sunday and Monday nights. During the day Public Safety conducted hourly checks of the area.
“The best thing that Public Safety can do for students right now is to make sure they feel as safe and secure as possible,” Wiggin said.
In addition, the Middletown Police Dept. has been asked to increase patrols in the High Rise/LoRise area from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. each night for at least the next week.
Director of Communications Justin Harmon said that improved lighting in the area is part of the University’s long-term plan.
“That’s an area that’s identified in the Master Plan as needing long-term improvements,” Harmon said.
Harmon also claimed that the circumstances presented an inherent risk.
“When you’re talking three in the morning on city streets there’s always going to be an element of risk,” he said. He also said more policing of the area is in effect.
Public Safety met Monday morning with the Middletown Police, and both departments continue to investigate the incident.
Anyone with any information is asked to call the Middletown Police Department’s detectives’ bureau at 344-3240 or Wesleyan Public Safety at 685-2345.