The Department of Public Safety reports in a Public Safety Alert that a burglary took place early this morning in Village C West. A female student reported that two unknown males entered her room in Village C, which was unlocked. She screamed when one of them touched her hand and they fled, apparently without doing any other damage or taking anything.

From the Public Safety Alert:

At approximately 2:15 a.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2010, a student reported to DPS that two unknown males entered her unlocked room in Village C West at approximately 2:10 a.m. When one of the suspects touched the complainant’s hand, she screamed in response, and the two suspects fled from the room and headed in an unknown direction. DPS responded to the scene. No suspects were located.

It is unclear whether the student was sleeping or awake when they entered. The student was not harmed and DPS did not locate the two suspects. The suspects are described as two men in their twenties, and there is no further description.

View November 2009 in a larger map

Crime was down significantly from October, when 52 incidents were recorded in the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Crime Log. In November’s crime log (PDF), there were 28 incidents reported. Here’s a breakdown of what was in the log:

• In November, there were 18 thefts reported to DPS, and three burglaries that resulted in theft. Almost all of the theft incidents took place in classrooms or public spaces, and the three burglaries occurring in Village A, McCarthy, and Yates.

  In six cases, wallets or cash went missing; four laptops, two cell phones, and an assortment of other items—a GOCard, laundry, a jacket, a backpack full of notebooks, a makeup bag—were purloined, too. One of the laptops was taken in a burglary. Another burglary took place in Village A, where a suspect broke in and stole a television, and the third burglary was the break-in and assault at Yates, where robbers made off with $7,500 in cash and threw security cameras in the pool.

  Not everything that got stolen last month was lost forever. On Saturday, November 24, a suspect stole a bicycle that wasn’t locked from the ICC area and fled, only to abandon the bicycle at the front gates.

• Aside from the break-in at Yates, last month’s most disconcerting crime was a crime of voyeurism. A small camera was found attached to a soap dispenser in the Student Health Center. In an e-mail, Associate Director of DPS Joseph Smith said that he could not comment on whether there were any suspects as this case is still an “active investigation,” nor could he go into any more detail about the incident.

• The homophobic graffiti found in Copley Hall, which according to The Hoya was the fifth bias-related incident reported to DPS since late October, accounted for the one incident of vandalism that occurred in November.

• There was one case of unlawful entry, in which a person who had been barred from entering Lauinger Library was booted from the Library again and barred from campus.

• Four drug violations were recorded at the beginning of the month. In all cases, it seems that the perpetrators had left the area before DPS arrived and found their drugs or “drug paraphernalia.” In one case, the substance found was identified as marijuana.

View Suspected “Georgetown Cuddler” incidents in a larger map

Vox just obtained the Metropolitan Police Department’s report about the suspected “Cuddler” incident that occurred between 5 and 6 a.m. the morning of Saturday, July 25th at a house on the 1800 block of 35th Street.

According to the report:

[Complainant 1] was in her bed when an unknown subject entered her room, disrobed from the waist down, leaving his shoes on and climbed into the bed with her ad hugged her. C-1 never look at [Subject 1] because she assumed that it was her male friend that frequents her home.

C-1 did not realize until an hour or so later that S-1 was not a friend of hers when he attempted to touch C-1 while climbing on top of her placing his penis on her inner thigh. C-1 further states that her male friend is gay so once S-1 started to touch her she instantly knew that it was not her friend in the bed with her.

C-1 then rolled out from under S-1 and ran into the hallway where S-1 confronted her and asked C-1 “what’s the problem?” C-1 then ran down the stairs where the other house guest were to alert them. At which time S-1 vacated the premises in an unknown manner. C-1 and house guests then searched the home to make sure that S-1 was gone.

The MPD report classifies the incident primarily as a burglary and secondarily as “sexual abuse, misdemeanor.” The report states that there was no forced entry and the point of entry, method and tools used are unknown. The case is open for investigation, according to the report.

According to Georgetown’s Director of Media Relations Andy Pino, the incident has not been reported to the University’s Department of Public Safety.

We have updated our map of possible “Cuddler” incidents (above) to include this latest alleged attack.

More information from MPD after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning a message was sent out to the Burleith and Georgetownforum listserves with details of a burglary/sexual assault that allegedly occurred on the morning of Friday, July 25th on 35th street. According to the email*, a male suspect got into bed with a girl who was sleeping and laid on top of her. The email’s author writes that she believes the perpetrator is the man known as the “Georgetown Cuddler.”

At around 4:15 a.m. a “normal looking guy” holding a six pack of beer knocked on the back door of the house, the email says. A male friend who was staying downstairs let him in when he said he was there to see one of the roommates.  He left ten minutes later, and one of the roommates came downstairs and told the guys staying there that someone had been trying to pick the lock to her bedroom.  When they realized the visitor may have been an intruder, they locked all the downstairs doors.

The email says that between 5 and 5:30 a.m. that morning another roommate awoke to find a man getting into her bed.  She thought it was a male friend of hers who told her he might sleep over.  When she said her friends name the suspect replied, “Yeah, hey,” so she went back to sleep.  The victim was awakened around 6 a.m. when the man was on top of her.

She jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, followed by the suspect.  According to the email, the he was of medium build, about 5′10″ or 5′11″ with short-cut brown hair and wearing a collared shirt.  By the time the victim ran downstairs to alert her friends, the suspect had left the house.

The email also says this is the second time in a year that the “Cuddler” has visited this house.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s Daily Crime Log shows there was burglary on July 25th on the 1800 block of 35th street between 5 and 6 a.m. Officials from MPD and the Department of Public Safety have not yet returned requests for comment, but we’ll let you know when we have more information.

*Text of the email has been removed at the request of its author.

A classic criminal hotbed

July has seen a bit of an uptick from the campus’s summer crime lull. As of the 16th—the last time the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Crime Log [PDF] was updated—there had been 16 incidents reported, just three less than were reported in the entire month of June (you can see them all mapped out on our July Campus Crime Map).

Curiously, seven of the 16 incidents occurred in the Southwest Quad, mostly in a couple of spurts:

On Monday, July 6 the following incidents were reported in Kennedy Hall:

• 1:13 a.m. “Theft of cash, clothes and shoes”
• 11:47 p.m. “Theft of camera”
• 11:47 p.m. “Theft of cash”

On Tuesday, July 14, a laptop was stolen from “an unsecured room” in Kennedy.

On Wednesday, July 15, the following incidents were reported in Reynolds Hall:

• 3:40 p.m. “Theft of a room key and cell phone from an unsecured dorm room”
• 4:42 p.m. “Theft of an iPod (valued at approximately $250) and cash ($235) from an unsecured dorm room”
• 5:40 p.m. “Theft of a cell phone (valued at approximately $100) and cash ($160) from an unsecured dorm room”

It certainly seems like someone’s targeting the Quad. When asked about the thefts, DPS Associate Director Joseph Smith wrote in an email:

[A]s they are active investigations it would not be prudent for me to conjecture on the potential interrelatedness of the incidents. DPS is paying special attention to these areas and has been in communication with relevant University personnel in an effort to deter further acts of theft in these areas.

A staffer at the Kennedy RHO said there are a variety of groups staying in the Quad right now, some of them high schoolers, some older. A representative from the Office of Housing Operations, which handles the accommodations of summer programs, said they could not disclose which groups were staying there.

View Larger Map

DPS reports that at 4:20 a.m. today, an unidentified male entered a student residence on the 3300 block of Prospect Street and—you guessed it—lay down on the couch next to a sleeping female student, “at which time she was startled awake” and the intruder fled. From the report:

The suspect is described as a white male, 6′1″-6′2″ tall, with short dark hair, possibly wearing a sweater and jeans.

Does this crime cuddle? Well, last week, MPD 2D’s Commander Klein told the Voice’s Eric Pilch that the Metropolitan Police Department suspect that the perpetrator of the most recent incidents (which occurred on February 11 and February 26) is the same man behind all the other ones. And Pilch keenly notes that “Georgetown Cuddler” incidents tend to happen two or three at a time.

Above, I’ve updated the “Georgetown Cuddler” crime map to reflect the MPD’s belief that he’s behind the Feb. 11 and 26 incidents. This latest is in red. Not a pretty sight, is it?

View Larger Map

Crime Map, updates for this crime and 3000 O St. robbery in red

Sure sounds like it. At about 5:00, DPS sent out a PSA describing a burglary that took place on the 3400 block of N Street in which a man “crawled into the complainant’s bed while she was asleep”:

She was startled awake. The suspect subsequently left the bedroom and exited the residence by the front door.

The complainant contacted DPS who responded to the scene along with MPD. A search of the area was conducted but the suspect was not located. There were no signs of forced entry at the scene. DPS is working with MPD on the continuing investigation.

According to the PSA, “The suspect is described as a Hispanic male, 5′11″-6′, with a medium build, wearing a 3/4 length wool jacket and blue jeans.” That sure sounds like the “Georgetown Cuddler.”  If MPD confirms they suspect him of this crime, that would bring his creepy count up to at least seven. The Voice is looking into this as we speak.

Meanwhile at The Sexist, discussion over what to call the “Georgetown Cuddler” so his nickname better reflects the creepy nature of his crimes has come to a standstill. But I can’t keep using quotes around ‘Cuddler’ to try to mollify my discomfort in using the term forever.

So, the Georgetown Entry-Gainer? The Georgetown Blanketlayer? The Georgetown Rapist? (Although he hasn’t raped anyone at Georgetown, although he’s tried).

The Department of Public Safety reports that at 4:00 a.m. this morning, an unidentified man entered a student residence on 3700 T St., went into the basement where a student was sleeping, and fled immediately when confronted by the student, who he woke up.

The suspect didn’t take anything and DPS, who responded to the scene along with MPD, is describing him as a white male in a black coat.

This is the first crime this semester in which the perpatrator targeted a male (though likely not with that particular intention). Luckily, he seemed to be of the tamer class of criminals we’ve been seeing lately. But as DPS constructs RADS, the self-defense program it promised to Georgetown women—but has yet to deliver—it may want to consider expanding the program to include a defense class for men, like AU has opted to do.

A student awoke Friday morning  at 3:00  a.m. to find an unknown man standing next to her bed on the 3600 block of Prospect Street, the Department of Public Safety said in a PSA they released this morning. According to DPS’ report, which classified the incident as a burglary:

“The suspect placed a blanket over the complainant, then left the residence. The rear entrance of the residence was unlocked and there were no signs of forced entry. … The suspect is described as a white male, 6′4″ tall, 215 pounds, unshaven, with short cropped hair.”

No property is listed as stolen. We’ve wondered before at DPS’ choice to classify some crimes ‘burglaries,’ burglary being the mere act of breaking into a building. Does “placed a blanket over [her]” count for anything more?

It happened early this morning (emphasis mine):

She was awakened at 2:50 a.m. the same day by an unidentified white male who was crawling on the floor near her bed. When the student confronted the suspect, he stood up and exited the room. The student reported that the door to her room was unlocked at the time of the incident.

Crawling on the floor? When will creepy things stop happening at Georgetown? On the bright side, we continue to learn that “burglary” does not necessarily imply theft.