By Drew Teague
dteague@kykernel.com
UK Police is interviewing suspects in the Saturday assault that took place behind the Kappa Sigma Fraternity house and may be nearing an arrest in the case.
UK Police Chief Joe Monroe said detectives interviewed one suspect and have identified another suspect who will soon be interviewed by police.
“The detectives are making progress when it comes to the investigation on this case,” Monroe said.
The assault occurred at 3:20 a.m. Saturday, when the victim was struck on the head and ran from the suspects.
“The victim was in the complex, the Four Pack area, and was confronted by two Black males and a White male,” Monroe said. “Apparently (the victim) was struck in the head, I guess twice, once by both Black males, then they took off running to the White male’s vehicle and fled the scene.”
Police do not know what the victim was struck with during the assault.
“We feel like these individuals involved with this are probably involved with some other stuff in and around campus,” Monroe said.
Monroe would not say if the suspects are students at the university but said arrests are possible in the case soon.
Monroe advises students to be aware of their surroundings on campus and to familiarize themselves with campus safety programs, including the availability of UKPD for an escort after the SAFECATS program has ended each evening.
“I get calls from parents all the time, that for some reason the parent didn’t know these services were available, even though we talk about them in advising conferences.”
Monroe stressed the importance of calling UKPD immediately after a crime has occurred to help police stitch the events together.
“Don’t wait 45 minutes, an hour, two hours or the next day before you call,” Monroe said. “What we’re finding out is, is that if we get the call as soon as something happens, it helps us piece things together and get that information actively gathered and put out, either in a crime bulletin or a UK Alert.”
Monroe wants to remind students that UK is a safe campus. The latest Reader’s Digest findings named UK the fourth safest campus in the nation.
“We have a safe campus. We have these rash (occurrences), that seem to happen once a year, every year in the fall,” Monroe said. “It’s always right there at the cluster of when school starts back.”
Monroe said the recent crimes were issued in a crime bulletin because police we not notified immediately, and the threat was not there when they were notified to issue a UK Alert.
UK Alerts can be sent out in a matter of minutes if need be. Dispatches have clearance to issue those without any higher up approval.
One thing I noticed in the Readers Digest safety ratings. John Hopkins has 6,000 students and 58 cops, but UK has 30,000 students and only 50 cops. Why is UK so understaffed?
UK has the worst Police Officer to student ratio of any campus in the U.S. by looking at that rankings.
The study Chief Monroe talked about is a joke! It’s suppose to be about “campus safety”, but NO crime numbers are factored in to the rankings. All it factors in is having to show an ID to get in a building, lighted parking lots and so on. According to this article that Chief Monroe mentioned, a college could have 1,000 rapes a year and be ranked high as long as the college has lighted parking lots and ID entry into buildings.
You really think UK only has 50 cops? Youve got to be kidding me. It seems that Uk needs to stop trying to catch students drinking and focus more on the sexual assaults and robberies that I keep getting emails about every other day.
Jack-2013-you may not know this, but John Hopkins is in the middle of Baltimore. Pretty much guaranteed a murder every weekend (if not 2 or 3) in that city-granted, not as bad as Chicago…but it’s not like Lexington is even in the same ball park.
John: a lot of the sexual assaults, assaults, and robberies have a tendency to occur as a symptom of student drinking-whether directly at a party, or indirectly as some poor sap stumbles their way home at 3 in the morning.
John: UK cuurently has only 48 Officers, most of those 48 are administration according to their website. There has not been a sexual assault of campus this year. The email you’re referring are mostly jokes. Alerts are put out for almost every crime committed on campus. Someone has a 12 pack of coke stolen and an alert will go out.
Wake Up: if you look at the Readers Digest rankings UK does have one of the worst police officer to student ratio. The UK campus could be considered the 4th largest city in Kentucky when students are here. So some crimes will happen.
WakeUp: Here is an a paragraph from the crime bulletin every student received.
At approximately 2:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012, a sexual assault and robbery occurred near 665 South Limestone (across Limestone from the Washington Avenue intersection). The female victim was approached by one suspect, described to be a thin black male in his 20s, and possibly another suspect with an unknown description. The victim stated she was robbed and sexually assaulted, causing serious injuries
EDIT: Jason
technically 665 south limestone is not UK property. If you consider all property around UK part of UK then the crime rates will soar. UK hospital gets rapes, gunshot victims, assault victims etc daily.
Crimes will happen. UK has around 70,000 people on campus daily, which makes it the 3rd largest city in Kentucky. There are 2 large hospitals on campus owned by UK, which brings in some unsavory characters. Not to mention there are numerous homeless shelters around campus. Be lucky you get alerts about crimes that occur. Most colleges will not release crime information.
UK has moved into MR. Robinson’s neighborhood. Each day in Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood is an adventure.