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“Calvin is a safe place, and we have experienced far fewer crimes than one might expect on a large campus in a major city. Let’s keep it that way!” ends a letter to the student body signed by Assistant Dean for Residence Life John Witte and Interim VP for Student Life David Hoekema.

But recently a big black streak marred that image of a squeaky clean campus with an event which took place in the early hours of the morning.

At 4:00 a.m. on April 3, an attacker in one of the residence hall lobbies pinned down his victim briefly and made threatening remarks, while holding some sort of instrument against his victim’s throat. “Fortunately, the victim reacted quickly and forcefully, throwing the attacker off and yelling loudly enough to cause him to flee the building,” according to the letter.

“It was a serious physical assault--an aggravated assault, in the legal language of the police report,” says the letter. Director of Campus Safety was hesitant to speak on the issue, except to say that the victim did not want to be contacted.

“It’s definitely a situation where privacy is deserved and sought,” said Witte. However, the situation is serious enough that the Grand Rapids Police are involved and a detective is on the case.

How does Campus Safety go about working in a case such as this?

Campus Safety Operations Manager Dan Gordon explained the steps taken when a situation of this nature is called in.

Campus Safety has a standard procedure which is used for cases whether they be major or minor, according to Gordon.

First, the victim is checked and any medical needs are attended to. Then the victim is questioned about any description he or she may be able to give on the attacker. Any witnesses in the area are asked the same question, and this is relayed to Campus Safety officers who begin a search of the premises.

In this particular case, said Gordon, card access records – records of who swiped their card to get into the residence hall – were searched and people who entered the residence hall around the time of the attack were contacted and questioned.

After this, if the case is sufficiently serious, something which is determined on a case-by-case basis, the scene is secured for evidence and the police are called in. With the April 3 incident, police called in an officer from the identification bureau was called in to dust for fingerprints.

“Then the last thing that you do is you document what you’ve done,” said Gordon. In this case, the police did a report and Calvin did a report and “after the fact you review that and see if there’s anything more that can be done.” The victim was also re-interviewed to see if anything else might come up, and a detective was assigned to the case who contacted Calvin and worked together on possible gathering of evidence and solving the crime.

Gordon would not comment on the odds of the case being solved. “Right now unless we get some additional information from the campus community or something like that, the [finger]prints are our only hope,” said Gordon.

“But there’s been times in the past when you don’t think you’re going to get anything and it drops out of the blue on you. It’s difficult to say. All we can do is keep working on it and we’re looking for more information. It’s an unpredictable thing – I’m always hopeful that something is going to occur that is going to get us the person involved.”

In the meantime, students are being encouraged to lock their doors at night and to call Campus Safety if any suspicious-looking individual is seen. Students are also strongly encouraged to keep an eye out for “tailgaters,” people who get in to the dorms on the heels of students with cards.