By Miriam Montes

November 3, 2009

A possible sexual assault in one of the residence halls on campus has called into question security measures when alerting the campus of suspicious activity. 

EC freshman Lisa Chlopek didn’t hear anything about the sexual assault even though Krause sent out a crime report to all students via e-mail, which she does every two weeks.

“It’s obviously necessary to know about it and e-mails are a good start by they probably could do more,” said Chlopek. “But I think it would be different if I lived on campus.”

The alleged sexual assault took place at the end of September when Campus security received a phone call from a student.

“It was one of those situations where one person went further than the other wanted to go,” said Caroline Krause, assistant director of campus security for Elmhurst College. “The sexual assault was between two individuals who were acquaintances here on campus.”

According to Krause, the individual did not follow through and press charges with the police department however, they did meet with the Elmhurst Police. Krause said that a person may not want to follow through with the police because the process of going through the police is long and a lot of things are held to a much higher standard.

Krause was not able to comment on the status between the two individuals.

“The situation was dealt with the judicial board, it was a violation with the code of conduct in the E-book,” said Krause.

Although Krause said it was not  a “violent situation” and “no one was in peril,” Chlopek still couldn’t believe something like this would happen at EC.

 “I feel people here are more like a family. I think of the town of Elmhurst as a good community and it’s weird to hear stuff like that,” said Chlopek.

According to Krause, students shouldn’t believe that no crime goes on at EC.

 “It’s unfortunate that people have this belief that there is no crime on campus,” said Krause. [Sexual assault] is not reported often. In these situations, the survival’s well being is first and protecting the campus is second.”

Krause said that there are a lot of false reports of people who are lying and it’s hard for the true survivors to report situations like these because they are afraid others won’t believe them.

“It breaks my heart that people on campus right now try to deal with something like this and don’t report it,” said Krause. “It’s a very traumatic thing.”

There is a silent witness page on the campus security website that Krause advises to use if someone wants to report a crime but wants no part of it.

 “It’s very helpful and best for a crime that is in progress but we’ve had one person use it,” said Krause. “It was for a couple that was arguing.”

The bottom line: if there are suspicious occurrences on campus, they should not go unreported. It’s best to use precaution.

 “We’re right by the train tracks and someone could get off the train commit a crime and go back on the train and no one will ever know,” said Krause. “People need to make rational and good choices.”