Only days after the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) alerted the community to allegations of three recent sexual assaults near campus, officers have received a report of a fourth incident.
Yesterday, a Tufts student reported that sometime after midnight on March 31, a man pretending to need directions sexually assaulted her on Curtis Street.
This report brings the tally to four in less than a month. Two of the other alleged assaults happened this weekend - one on Friday and another on Saturday - and another one occurred on April 10.
In both the March 31 and April 10 incidents, the victim was a Tufts student.
Director of Public and Environmental Safety John King said that to his knowledge, no suspects have been apprehended in any of the four incidents.
While he cannot recall ever getting so many reports of sexual assaults in a one-month period, he said that he is not aware of any evidence that they are connected. "We don't have any information to confirm that they're related," he said.
On Monday, TUPD Captain Mark Keith told the Daily that Saturday's assault and the one on April 10 seemed "very similar in nature" because both involved a male approaching a female, groping her and fleeing.
Neither of the other two events fit this description.
On Friday, the victim was held at knife point and assaulted on two separate occasions. No weapon was referenced in a Safety Alert from TUPD that was sent to the community about the March 31 incident; it only stated that the victim was forced to the ground by the perpetrator and then assaulted.
King said that TUPD is working with the Medford Police Department (MPD) and the Somerville Police Department (SPD) to investigate all four incidents. It is still unclear who will have primary jurisdiction in the March 31 incident because, as of press time, the victim had not specified exactly where on Curtis Street the assault occurred.
While Tufts has secondary jurisdiction in the other three cases, King said that they are all joint investigations.
Aside from assisting the local departments, TUPD will also have more officers on duty during evening and nighttime hours and is encouraging concerned students to take advantage of its escort service.
TUPD has also e-mailed two separate Security Alerts - one about the three incidents that were reported prior to yesterday and one about the most recent report - to the community in recent days.
King said that he is not sure whether or not the victim from the March 31 incident was prompted to come forward yesterday, almost a month after the assault, after learning about the other three assaults from a Safety Alert that was sent on Monday. "I really wouldn't speculate. I don't know," he said.
