The Davis Square Community

It's fabulous Tufts always tells us about assaults by "outsiders," but when one student rapes another they don't say anything about it and let the offender free.

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that's messed up; i didnt get that email.

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jezekel.livejournal.com

me either. no tufts student i've talked to has received an email either!

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Yeah, no dice here either.

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I haven't heard about that, but then I've never lived on campus. Any other info?

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Let's just say there is a LOT of incidents that happen between students that the general student body is not informed about. One infuriating case had a student acquitted even tho there was police called, witnessed, rape kit done, etc. The only reason I heard about it is because of connections.

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It should show up on Tufts' announcement web page (not there yet):

http://inside.tufts.edu/announce/index.php?t=cat&catid=3

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No, it's not particularly dangerous. There was a series of related incidents last spring which you might be thinking of.

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How do you know the story you heard is accurate?

It's easy, especially in a campus environment, for rumors to get going about this sort of thing.

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this wasn't through rumors. i am far from being in any rumor circles. I can't go into specifics, but administration and deans have talked to us about it.

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and unfortunately i know from first hand experience that the school doesn't like to do anything involving sexual assault allegations against other students

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ad-lib.livejournal.com

scary. :(

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studeronomy.livejournal.com

I got an e-mail this morning alerting me that I have overdue books, but still no sign of this.

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Many, many schools do, unfortunately, dismiss sexual assault claims when they involve students. Why? Because acknowledging them means the school gains a reputation for being unsafe and that affects application numbers.

It is utter bullshit, of course, and every college that does this should be ashamed.

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Thanks. I'd always hoped that Tufts was better about it than other colleges, but it seems I was wrong. How damn disappointing.

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shirt-seeker.livejournal.com

Yep. I live basically more or less around the corner, which is frightening. But neither my wife nor me leave the house alone after hours anyway.

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shirt-seeker.livejournal.com

So is this some scam?

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Yeah, it is really sad to see that Tufts is just like the other schools when it comes to this. Hopefully things will change. Some people and myself have been talking about working to change their BS policies.

Right now it's just set up that it LOOKS like you have rights, but in practice everything is so vague it's built that the survivor has no chance. Even some TUPD officers (in my personal experience) are quick to take a side and make it obvious who they believe.

Just be careful!

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Nah. In my opinion, since it's summer and very few of us live in the area year round, the administration probably turned off automatic email announcements to the Tufts' student body.

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icecreamempress.livejournal.com

Thanks for sharing this info.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/

I am wondering if there is any connection between this incident and the incident from last week (http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/x1713654403/Have-you-seen-this-man-Police-said-he-attacked-female-jogger) that ocurred near Broadway and Billingham.

The two incidents ocurred about half a mile (http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNA_enUS238US239&q=broadway+and+billingham+ave,+somerville,+ma&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image) apart.

Both ocurred in the early AM hours

Both involved cuacasian males with darker hair. I know that's the only similarity from the descriptions, but there are also no mutually exclusive traits either. Both descriptions seem only partial. Often, victims don't get a good look at their assailants, and/or the intensity of the moment can lead to a skewed description (I know. I had to try and give a police description after a traumatic incident and it was very hard!). I just find it odd that in less than a week there has been two attacks in roughly the same vicinty.

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icecreamempress.livejournal.com

The Powderhouse assaulter was described as wall-eyed and extremely obese. Those are pretty distinctive traits that I think the Dearborn Road assaultee would have mentioned in his or her description, especially since it was given in enough detail to include hairstyle and lip-ring.

Extropia is very rare, and extreme obesity is relatively rare. I don't think one would leave out either descriptor.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/

You would be surprised at not only what can be missed, but what can be recorded incorrectly by the mind under extreme circumstances.

I was involved in an armed robbery. I was looking right at the perpetrator and he had the gun right to my head, yet I could not positively identify the perpetrator or the gun.

Many times people berate victims for not being able to identify their attackers, or presume that an incorrect or inadequate description means that the victim is lying/exaggerating. But one simply cannot udnerstand unless you've been in the situation.

Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see any mention that the second attacker was svelte or well-eyed. In fact, weight and eye alignment were omitted from the description. I don't think it is fair to assume that because any descriptor was omitted the implication is that nothing was out of the ordinary (I do question how accurate 280-300 pounds is -- weight is hard to judge)

I'm not saying that these are the same perpetrators. I'm sure the Somerville PD is on top of this and looking for any connections (or lack thereof) as well.

I just found it odd that two assaults occurred in the early AM hours less than half a mile apart and in the same general neighborhood less than one week apart.

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icecreamempress.livejournal.com

I don't think that someone could be assaulted by someone who is extremely obese and not remember that, but yet remember the particulars of his piercings. Similarly, the police would be vanishingly unlikely to put something as fine in granularity as "tongue ring" in a description and omit something as broadly identifying as "extremely obese" from it.

And, yes, I've been assaulted, and I know that memory can be really, really tricky in that instance, but I highly doubt that these two cases involve the same offender.

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pearlythebunny.livejournal.com

I don't think it's a scam because I was on Dearborn Road Sunday afternoon around 1. I saw two Somerville police cruisers in front of a green house on the corner of Dearborn and Bromfield Roads. The police officers were talking to some people in front of the house, and a man in a white lab coat was taking photographs.

So I knew something had happened on Dearborn Road on Sunday, and then when I got this email message, I figured this must be what had happened. It's not definite proof, I guess, but it seems likely to me.

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Anyone want to start a pool to see how long this takes to get a mention in the Journal?

They had a breaking story today about the fire department getting a cat out of a tree.

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Why the secrecy? The Tufts Daily does (or used to) report on disciplinary hearings, just with the names redacted ( because of the Buckley Amendment and all ).

Also the Observer ( back when the Observer was a weekly newspaper ) used to run a weekly police log.

I know with the Clery act, colleges have to report crime statistics, and the number of sexual assaults is one of those figures. What happens in a case like this? Would the incident you mention count or not?

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Can you tell us if this was a case where the "jury" simply didn't vote guilty, or it was because of a technicality, or the case was dropped for some reason?

That can be a frustrating part of criminal justice, whether it's in criminal court or in private arbitration; sometimes defendants go free because there's a problem with the evidence, or the jury simply doesn't return a guilty verdict.

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I am very sorry to hear about this.

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That cuts both ways. In the 1990s, when there was a big outcry against acquaintance rape, there was a lot of doubt about whether a defendant could get due process in "campus court".

At most schools, campus hearings only require a preponderance of evidence to determine guilt, not guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It often comes down to who they believe more.

At Tufts, from reading the reports on disciplinary cases in the paper, they always seemed to return a guilty verdict. Sometimes there wasn't even a hearing; there was a case in the late 1990s where a student was accused of fraud, something about joining a music purchasing thing under a phony name.

He was suspended, and then came back the next semester and wrote an article in the school paper about his ordeal, that the school decided there was enough evidence against him to not bother with a hearing. Umm, no. I don't care if the dean sees you do it himself; you should have the right to tell your side of the story.

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I find it very difficult to not wonder about a connection.

Especially with both happening not only in the very early am hours, but very early on weekend mornings.

Was the second victim jogging or walking, or was she stationary? The initial report doesn't say. But both incidents happened just off major streets. Places where a jogger would be spotted.

People, please be very careful. I always take a cellphone when I jog. It's not so much for you as it's for in case you see something happening blocks away. I try to be a good set of eyes and ears.

I _very_ strongly suggest taking notice of anyone in a motor vehicle or on a bike paying undue attention to a female jogger and then doubling back on foot. Or anything of that sort that doesn't seem to have a legitimate business or purpose.

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It's very possible for someone to only remember a partial description after an incident like that. It doesn't mean they have an unreliable memory or aren't telling the whole truth. It's just that the mind does not work like a camera.

Perhaps a better analogy would be trying to download a very large progressive JPEG over a slow connection. Some parts of the image would be clear, some would be very blocky and general. This is because most of the mental effore is being used for a more important task, that of staying alive.

Both victims were grabbed out of the blue, and probably only saw through the corner of their eye. The first incident happened over an hour before sunrise. It's likely neither of them got a good enough look at their assailant to gauge body weight or give him an ophthalmological workup.

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The Daily CAN report on disciplinary hearings. They dont do all of them. Also, they can include names if they find out, actually, but Tufts itself cannot supply names.

The Observer does still have the logs, but obviously they dont report EVERYTHING. And if i were an editor, I wouldnt wanna report an alleged rape on a student by a student.

I mean, of course the crime would be report in statistics, but how available is this information? Do they specify who is doing what? From my work this past year at Tufts, this really has been something downplayed to be honest I'm sure any institution would do it.

*My* personal problem is its change of behavior and lack of action when it isnt a 'townie' accused, but another student.

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