BOULDER, Colo.—Six separate assaults on women around the University of Colorado since Halloween is prompting more patrols in the area, Boulder police said.
No arrests have been made, and police said descriptions of the attackers have varied, making it difficult to determine whether the assaults are connected.
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner and other detectives in his department met with university officials Friday after the latest attack and decided then to increase patrols, also focusing in alleys used as shortcuts.
“We see the same thing with the college students year after year,” said Boulder police Sgt. Janet Aguirre. “They leave friends at a party because they meet someone cute and then they are walking home alone and they have been drinking. These assailants could be identifying people who are easy targets.”
The latest attack happened in an alley near campus Friday, when a woman said she was approached from behind and pushed to the ground, where the assailant began choking her. She said she kneed the man in the groin several times and escaped.
The assaults, which included a Nov. 27 incident in which police said a woman may have been drugged at a bar near campus and then sexually assaulted in a Lafayette home, has students worried and some have begun to make sure they don’t walk alone.
Senior Sarianna Murphy, 21, said some women around campus carry a can of Mace or a whistle. But she said she wonders whether they will be able to use them when they need.
“If someone is attacking me, I’m not going to say, ‘Can you stop for a second so I can blow this whistle?'” she said.
Police said the first attack happened Oct. 30, when a woman walking home from a party was raped in an alley by four men.
“It’s been one right after the other,” Murphy said. “It’s two months later and we are still having attacks.”
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Information from: The Denver Post,
