View February 2010 Crime Map in a larger map

February wasn’t a very criminal month at Georgetown. There were 25 crimes recorded in the Department of Public Safety Daily Crime Log, but nearly half of those were drug violations. There were two very violent crimes, however, one simple assault, and one sexual assault. Here’s the breakdown:

• There weren’t as many thefts in February as Georgetown usually sees recorded in a month. Only five thefts took place. A bicycle tire, a coat containing a scarf, an iPod, and cash, a wallet, the contents of a backpack, including a laptop, and a cellphone SIM card were the items stolen.

• Unusually, there were quite a number of drug violations at Georgetown last month. A grand total of 12 drug violations were recorded in February, far and away the most of any month in the DPS logs online. Earlier this month, readers pointed out to us that the spike coincided with the Voice cover story about Georgetown’s relatively lenient punishments for drug use.

• A sexual assault occurred this month at the Georgetown University Hospital in which an assailant touched a victim inappropriately and was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department. MPD has not responded to several requests for more details about the assault, and DPS has referred Vox to the Hospital’s security.

• There was one simple assault at Georgetown at 36th and N Streets, in which two male students sent another student to the emergency room. The suspected assailants were identified and the case has been turned over to MPD.

• Two incidents of harassment occurred in which a complainant received threatening notes in Copley Hall and another received threatening notes in Darnall Hall.

• There was one case of unlawful entry recorded this month, in which an individual who had been barred from campus before was found in McCarthy Hall and was arrested and charged with unlawful entry.

• There was one case of public indecency, in which an individual was caught publicly urinating.

View January 2010 Crime Map in a larger map

January was a particularly violent month at Georgetown. Not because the number of crime incidents surged—there were 29 crimes reported for January in the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Crime log, which is about even with September and November, and nowhere near October, when 52 crimes were reported—but because the number of more serious incidents increased from months where there were a comparable number of crimes.

• Two assaults occurred on campus this month. The first was the incident Vox reported on in which a female student assaulted another with her keys after he broke up with her. The second occurred in Reynolds on a Thursday night, and ended with the complainant being treated in the emergency room for head injuries.

• A hit-and-run occurred at the Prospect Street gate which did not end in a trip to the emergency room.

• One robbery occurred in which the complainant was pushed into a wall and cash was stolen from her.

• Three cases of harassment were reported this month. In one, a student in Copley Hall received notes with offensive language; in another, someone received profane and harassing text messages; in the third case, someone in the New South Facilities building received annoying radio transmissions. All three cases are under investigation.

Read the rest of this entry »

View December Campus Crime Watch in a larger map

With students clearing out from campus before the month was over, December saw little crime. Only 14 crimes were reported all month, versus 52 in October and 28 in November, and there were no crimes reported after December 17. Here’s a breakdown of what was in the Department of Public Safety’s Daily Crime Log:

• There were four thefts at Georgetown in December. A wallet was stolen from a locker in Leo’s, a laptop was taken from Lauinger Library, a scarf was stolen from an office in Gervase, and a wallet was taken from a purse in the Hospital. In none of these cases were there any witnesses or suspects.

• Despite being a calm month, December did see one more serious crime, a case of simple assault at Lauinger Library. On December 8, at 2:50 p.m., a victim was hit in the chest several times by an unknown man, who fled the scene before he could be identified. Public Safety Department Associate Director Joseph Smith has not responded to requests for details about a description of the suspect, but we will let you know once he does.

• Two instances of destruction of property took place last month. On December 10, graffiti was discovered in Henle. (Again, we will let you know if Smith comments on the nature of the graffiti). In the other case, a car window was smashed in in the Southwest Quad parking garage.

• The fire in the New South dormitory made the log. DPS described its cause as “electrical outlet overload.”

• Two drug violations occurred in December. In both cases, DPS found marijuana in Harbin Hall. The log doesn’t indicate whether any students were present when the drugs were found, but if they are anything like their famous Harbin predecessor, they didn’t inhale.

• Two instances of “lewd, indecent, or obscene acts”—that is, men publicly urinating—showed up in the December log, one in Village A and one in Alumni Square.

• There was one case of fraud, in which someone seems to have used a book store gift card that wasn’t theirs, and one case of unlawful entry, in which a woman loitering in Dahlgren Chapel was barred from campus.

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 Georgetown Voice Crime Map: October 2009 in a larger map

Georgetown saw a dramatic increase in crimes in November, according to the Department of the Public Safety’s Daily Crime Log [PDF].  There were 52 incidents reported in October, exactly double the number of crimes reported in September.

Here’s a breakdown of the crimes reported last month:

• The increase in crime was due in large part to a jump in the number of thefts. There were 35 reported thefts in October, up from 14 in September and 12 in August.

  October’s high tally includes the seven burglaries that occurred in McCarthy on Halloween.  In total, five computers, three cameras, two cell phones and one iPod were reported stolen in McCarthy between 8:11 p.m. and 10:45 p.m.

  It also seems that someone is building up their wardrobe in a less-than-legal fashion.  There were four cases of clothing being taken from laundry rooms and two jacket-snatchings.

  This months award for oddest stolen object goes to the October 23 incident in which “subjects stole a hand sanitizer dispenser from an unknown location.” Luckily the hardened-but-germaphobic criminals were identified by DPS.

• There was also an increase in the number of drug violations, up to six from October’s two.  All of the incidents involved only marijuana, and three of them occurred in the area of Village A.  When will people learn the rooftops aren’t a safe smoking spot?
• There were six cases of simple assault.  Five involved students fighting with each other and one involved a “disorderly, combative male (non-student”) who refused to leave Copley Hall and assaulted a police officer.
• Alex Thiele’s alleged Midnight Madness adventure made the crime log twice.  There is one entry for “a firearm [being] removed from the bag of an off-duty Law Enforcement Officer” in McDonough Hall at 10:41 p.m. and another for a concealed weapon incident in Village C West at 10:48 in which “[The subject from the previous case] was identified and caught with the firearm.”
• There was one case of destruction of property, in which “unknown suspects threw a brick at a residence shattering the window.”
• There was one reported case of harassment.

View Georgetown Voice Crime Map: September 2009 in a larger map

During the month of September, Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety reported 26 incidents, according to the September Daily Crime Log (which was just put up on the DPS website in its finalized form this week).  That’s a slight increase over August’s 21 reported incidents.

Here’s how the numbers break down:

• 14 cases of the reported theft.  Four of the thefts involved bicycles.
• With the return of students, there was a drastic uptick in public urination (shocking!). There were 5 reported cases of public urination this September.  The most uncouth incident is from September 20th, when “a male was observed urinating in an elevator” in Darnall.
• There was one reported case of sexual abuse this month.  You can read the Voice’s coverage of the incident here.
• There were two drug violations reported, both of which involved marijuana.
• There was one incident involving destruction of property in which “unknown suspects, using spray paint, stenciled an SS symbol over a cross.”  You can read Vox’s coverage of the incident here.

The ‘most bizarre crime of the month’ award goes to this incident that occurred at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, September 2nd in LXR:

An unknown suspect stole a suit of armor statue from the victim’s balcony. Case cleared: the victim got his statue back and he didn’t want to press charges.

View Georgetown Voice Crime Map: August 2009 in a larger map

There were 21 incidents reported in the Department of Public Safety crime log in August, 8 fewer than there were during July.  Here’s the breakdown:

• 12 reported thefts, including one that occurred in the new Hariri Building, the first crime to take place in the new edifice.
• There were three reported cases of assault, including a punch thrown in New South and a dispute between University employees at the Power Plant.
• One case of destruction of property (a bike lock was damaged in an attempted theft).
• Five incidents of unlawful entry or burglary, including the August 30 incident in which the suspect “entered [the] residence unauthorized and lay on the sofa next to the sleeping victim.”
• Strange things are afoot at the library.  On August 21st, a library patron “reported being touched on the foot without authorization by an unknown male.”  As if that weren’t odd enough, on the 25th, the suspect returned to the scene of the crime!  The suspect was “barred from campus” and MPD was notified.

Now that we’re keeping an updated campus crime map, we figured at the end of every month we should give you a roundup of what (and how many) crimes have been committed on campus over the past month. Here’s what happened this July:

View Georgetown Voice Crime Map: July 2009 in a larger map

The Department of Public Safety finally updated their July Daily Crime Log yesterday, so we have all the data about campus crime this July. Last week Georgetown Metropolitan noted that the wider Georgetown neighborhood saw a bit of a crime spike this July, and it seems like that trend held for the University as well.

There were 29 incidents recorded in the DPS log during July, 53% more than June’s 19 incidents and 61% more than May’s 18 incidents. Here’s how the crime broke down this past month:

• If you’re looking for a cause of the campus crime spike, the answer is probably the huge increase in thefts. During July there were 24 thefts. That represents a 118% increase over June’s 11 thefts and a 200% increase over May’s 8 thefts. Earlier this month we noticed that there were a couple burglary sprees in the Southwest Quad—8 of the 24 thefts occurred in the Quad.
• One reported incident of disorderly conduct.
• One reported forcible entry into Maguire Hall (nothing was stolen).
• One reported assault.
• One reported sexual assault, the alleged rape which we reported on.
• One reported case of fraud perpetrated against the bookstore.

While most of the reported thefts involved cash, computers, bicycles or electronics like cameras and iPods, there was one curious case from July 22nd of a box of cherry hardwood flooring reportedly being stolen from the Harbin Garage. And unlike most of the other thefts, this case was actually classified as closed. How’d DPS solve it? According to the log, “Case closed after audit showed no missing materials.”

Now that we’re keeping an updated campus crime map, we figured at the end of every month we should give you a roundup of what (and how many) dastardly deeds were committed on campus over the past month. Here’s what happened this June:

View Georgetown Voice Crime Map: June 2009 in a larger map

Like May, June was a quiet month for Georgetown, with a total of 19 on-campus incidents reported in the DPS log. They breakdown as follows:

• 11 thefts
• 6 cases of unlawful entry or trespassing
• 1 case of destruction of property
• 1 case of threats

Probably the most intriguing incident of the month is the case of threats, for which the DPS log entry reads as follows:

June 12, 2009. 8:03 p.m.
Leavey Center—GUASFCU
Suspect threatened complainant over phone. Suspect identified. MPD notified.

We asked GUASFCU CEO Justin Lo Iacono about the incident, but he said that “the credit union does not discuss member details with the press, as all member details are confidential.”

The 11 cases of theft were mostly standard stuff (bicycles, wallets, electronics, laptops, etc), but there were a couple odd ones. On June 11, DPS reports the theft of “an electronic game and cord” from McCarthy Hall. On the 20th, someone stole hubcaps from a vehicle in the Southwest Quad Garage.