On The Edge News

BY YASIR ALHUMAIDAN | December 9, 2016

The victim of a recent sexual assault that was reported to the security office late in October has decided to withdraw the case.

On October 31, Edgewood students received an email regarding an alleged sexual assault that took a place in Weber Hall. On The Edge reported that the email was sent a few days after the crime was brought to the security office’s attention.

The case was under investigation until the victim decided to withdraw and not move forward with the case for unknown reasons.

Back in February, Edgewood College’s Judicial Board ruled against a student who claimed that she was raped by another Edgewood student; which lead to a campus protest that was covered by the local media. The claimant didn’t report the claim to the police, but she and others were disappointed in the college. Read the story here: http://otenews.com/?p=356

The question is whether or not Edgewood provides a comfortable and safe environment for its students. While Edgewood campus is considered a safe campus, students are curious about what happens when someone files a sexual assault claim. Maia Vogt feels safe on campus just because of the gender ratio. “I feel safe only because it’s predominantly females, otherwise I wouldn’t,” said Vogt.

Mikayla Mrochek, Edgewood student, was wondering why the college wouldn’t call the police when there is a sexaul assault. “It’s interesting that the college calls the police over suspected hate speech, but not over sexual assault,” she said.

When someone reports a sexual assault to the security office, the officer there provides a safe space for the claimant and “encourages” them to report it to the police because the college does not have the authority to do so. “We can’t do that if the victim says no,” said college security director Mike Metcalf.

The college sends as little information as possible in its emails regarding any crimes, especially sexual assaults. The email that was sent at the end of October contained five sentences about the incident. That was the last email that the security director has sent since then. Metcalf did not have an answer for whether or not he would send another email to follow up. “Tell me, how am I gonna phrase it?” He later said, “Let me think about it. We have never done it.”