A sexual assault was reported to University Police last Friday, Sept. 29. A Resident Advisor who was told about the sexual assault reported the incident to police. The student did not want to speak with police. This is the third sexual assault reported to UPD in 2017. The incident was reported a year after it happened, which is not unusual in sexual assault cases, Deputy Chief of Police Joshua Sticht said.
UPD chose to not send out a campus-wide alert because the student did not provide specific information that could be used to inform students and faculty on protecting themselves, according to Sticht.
The student did not identify if the alleged perpetrator is a UB student, or if the incident took place on campus. UPD are treating the incident as if it occurred on-campus, Sticht said.
Two other sexual assaults were reported to UPD in 2017. The first prompted a campus-wide alert in February, and in this incident the student later recanted her accusations. This incident was therefore considered unfounded and will not be reported in the annual Clery Act statistics.
The other incident is still under investigation but has stalled because the student has stopped communicating with police, Sticht said.
“Sometimes the trauma of reliving through this, giving a statement, unfortunately it’s not uncommon for a victim to stop answering our phone calls,” Sticht said.
Sexual assault incidents at UB are still presumed to be widely underreported, consistent with national phenomenons, according to Sticht.
In a campus climate survey conducted with 1,228 UB students, 92 percent of students who reported experiencing sexual misconduct did not report it.
Some reasons students gave for not reporting included: not thinking it was important enough (53.8 percent), not wanting to deal with it (48.7 percent) and not trusting UB to take appropriate action (16.4 percent).
There were eight sexual assaults reported in 2015 and seven in 2014. The 2016 Clery Statistics are not yet available on the website. The Spectrum reported six sexual assaults in 2016 as of October 12.
Sarah Crowley is the senior news editor and can be reached at sarah.crowley@ubspectrum.com
