Police arrest indecent exposure suspect
By Jay Cridlin
Editor in Chief

University Police arrested a man the evening of Nov. 27 on charges of indecent exposure after being called by a student who witnessed the incident.

University Police Chief Regina Lawson said the man, whose name was not available late Wednesday night, is believed to have been involved in other indecent exposures on campus since April 2000, and that the students targeted in those incidents are being contacted in case they are able to positively identify the man.

“He was positively identified in other cases, in previous reports,” Lawson said. “But we still want our students to use caution, because we’re not certain that he has been responsible for all these previously reported incidents.”

The 22-year-old first-year law student who phoned in the incident said she noticed the man staring at her as she studied near the Quad entrance to Reynolda Hall.

“I wanted to study in the Green Room because that’s where I studied here when I was a student,” said the student, who asked to remain anonymous. “I think it’s ironic that the one law student who was over there studying was the one that caught the guy.”

The student said the man resembled a student in nearly every way; he was in his early 20s and appeared to be waiting for a study group. She said that the man stared at her for over half an hour, and at about 6:30 p.m. she realized he was masturbating under his shirt.

“I got up and I took one bag with me, because I didn’t want him to see me get my phone out,” she said. “I went outside and called the police.”

Lawson said the man was easily apprehended. “We did make one arrest,” she said. “He was charged with one count (of indecent exposure), and we have other witnesses that are being contacted to see if he was responsible for the other acts.”

Lawson said she did not know if the man was still being detained Wednesday night.

Ironically, the student said that her roommate had actually witnessed an indecent exposure the night of Nov. 26, but that a different man had committed that incident.

University Police have been seeking two men in the indecent exposure cases. In an October advisory, one of the suspects was identified as a black male in his early 20s “who seems very familiar with the campus and is very student-like in appearance.”

Police believe this man was responsible for some of the more recent incidents on campus, including incidents in Tribble Hall, the Benson University Center, the Franklin D. Miller Center and Johnson Residence Hall.

The second suspect, described as a middle-aged black male, has not been identified.

Managing Editor Will Wingfield contributed to this article.