3 violent crimes in recent weeks, including 2 rapes, have UB students, officials on edge
The University at Buffalo South Campus turns scary
Just two weeks into the fall semester at the University at Buffalo, the school’s Main Street campus and the neighborhood around it have been the scene of three violent crimes.
Last Sunday, a freshman who stepped outside to get some fresh air was grabbed from behind and raped.
Four days later, a young woman walking across the campus was attacked by two men. They beat her, and then one held her down while the other sexually assaulted her.
And then early Saturday morning, a UB senior was hospitalized after he suffered a serious head wound during a fight that broke out just south of the campus.
The violence has students and community residents nervous and university officials and law enforcement working hard to put an end to the violence and crime that have long plagued the area.
“There’s no question that this situation is certainly frightening as well as discouraging,” said Dennis Black, UB’s vice president of student affairs. “This is not the way anyone wants to live, work, learn or study.”
The three incidents were reminiscent of a spate of crimes that struck the University District earlier this year, when a student leaving a bar after watching a Sabres game was beaten and left paralyzed. Two men have been indicted in the attacks, including one who is a former UB student.
Around the same time, several students were mugged at gunpoint in the neighborhood.
The attacks touched off calls for the police and university to do more to curb crime and also get students under control.
Saturday on the South Campus, most students were aware of at least one of the recent rapes.
“I’m a fifth-year senior, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Luz Rivera, 21, a theater and legal studies double major from the Bronx. “As [long] as I’ve been here, there was maybe one [rape] . . . I don’t know what’s going on.”
Freshman Autumn Stevens, 18, speaking outside Hayes Hall, near where Thursday’s rape occurred, said the twin assaults have left her and her new classmates unsettled.
“Being a freshman here, it’s not something you expect to have to deal with your first or second week of school,” she said. “Me and my friends — now we always leave in a big group of people. We never walk alone.”
Brittney Boyd, 21, a senior majoring in architecture, said the recent violence has persuaded her to stay off campus at night.
“I have been working at my house more often than in the studios,” Boyd said.
Architecture students are known for working late into the night at the studios on campus.
“Walking around here late at night — it was always scary, but now it’s twice as scary,” Boyd said.
And Friday night, she was awakened to the sound of screaming and sirens. She lives two blocks from where John C. Ojeda was beaten up during a fight on Custer Street, just off Main Street.
“People were screaming at each other,” she said. “Ambulances were everywhere.”
Police said Ojeda was found unconscious on the ground after reports of a large fight. Witnesses said two men punched Ojeda in the face, causing him to fall backward. He suffered a deep cut to the back of his head.
He was rushed to Erie County Medical Center, where he was put in the intensive care unit.
Victim to recover
By Saturday afternoon, doctors said Ojeda would make a full recovery. He was expected to be moved to a regular hospital room within a day and was in “good spirits” and surrounded by friends, Black said.
The attack on Ojeda reminded many of a far more serious assault that took place earlier this year.
On March 22, Michael Bliss, a UB student from Rochester, was left paralyzed from the waist down when he was beaten. Bliss fell back and hit his head on a sharp guardrail.
David Ellerbrock, president of the University Heights Collaborative, who had worked with UB officials and police in the wake of the attack on Bliss, said last week’s violence was troubling.
“The violent behavior . . . what can you say? It’s unacceptable,” he said. He said the fact a woman who is not affiliated with the university was raped on the campus should send a message to UB “about their responsibility to the surrounding community.”
And with the fight on Custer Street, Ellerbrock said, it’s important to find out whether alcohol played a role. While the summer has been quiet, University Heights residents have been contending with wild, alcohol-fueled house parties.
Since the March incident, the community has made some strides in curbing crime and controlling off-campus students, Ellerbrock said.
Special police patrols
Three neighborhood watch groups have been formed, and the police have been using special patrols on weekends to deal with house parties and underage drinking.
University and Buffalo police now have monthly meetings where they share information. Later this month they are expected to sit down to discuss issues of underage drinking among students. The Collaborative also involves partnering with students “who are fed up with what they see around the campus neighborhoods,” Ellerbrock said.
But many residents are wondering whether UB could do more.
“Are they taking a hard, honest look at whether they’re doing everything they can, outside of the Office of Community Relations, to transform the surrounding South Campus neighborhood?” Ellerbrock said. “The Office of Community Relations cannot do it by themselves.”
In the wake of last week’s rapes and fight, university police have doubled their presence on and around campus. They are also working with Buffalo police, who also increased patrols.
And the university is making safety improvements on the South Campus, including replacing all exterior lighting, adding dozens of new security cameras and putting in new “blue light” emergency phones.
But university and law enforcement officials are asking students to do their part as well.
Avoid being a target
While no one blames the victims, officials pointed out that people can take measures to avoid becoming targets.
In last Sunday’s rape, for instance, the victim had her headphones on and was listening to her iPod when she was assaulted.
And in Thursday’s attack, the victim, a 24-year-old woman who is not affiliated with UB, was cutting across the campus in an isolated, poorly lit area.
“The important thing is for students to protect themselves,” Black said. “Walk with someone else. Take ear phones out when you’re outside. Stay in lighted paths.”
Rape crisis officials emphasized that rapes by strangers are rare and that most sexual assaults are committed by someone who knows the victim.
“But this absolutely brings to the forefront that stranger rapes absolutely occur,” said Robyn Wiktorski-Reynolds, advocate coordinator at Crisis Services.
She urged anyone who is sexually assaulted, regardless of whether the attacker is an acquaintance or stranger, to seek treatment at a hospital as quickly as possible. Hospitals can provide medication to help prevent HIV infection, but it’s only effective within 36 hours of transmission.
She also said that victims of assault who don’t have health insurance can get financial assistance from the State Crime Victims Board.
