She came to a fraternity party Saturday near the University of Chicago campus, where she told the Chicago police she danced and had some drinks.
But as Saturday night gave way to Sunday morning, the 21-year-old woman said she “began feeling unwell” and was sexually assaulted at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house, 5625 S. University Ave, according to a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Her account was backed up by two friends, who told the police they intervened by barging into a bathroom as the attack happened.
The case has placed the University of Chicago, one of the country’s premier academic institutions, at the center of a nationwide reckoning over sexual assault, which has been fueled by another reported attack, this one at a fraternity house at Cornell University in upstate New York.
On Tuesday afternoon, University of Chicago issued an alert saying that “a person of interest has been identified.” No arrests have been reported.
The woman’s friends said that a group of men had tried to block them from entering the bathroom after the men were seen “cheering and appearing to encourage the activity inside,” according to the report.
The group, which consisted of as many as five men, initially told the woman’s friends she wasn’t inside the bathroom, the report says. When the two other women pushed forward, a man grabbed one of them by the hair as the other picked the bathroom lock, according to the report.
The 21-year-old woman was “not fully conscious” when she was found inside the bathroom, according to the report, which says she and the man were both partially undressed.
After one of the woman’s friends told him to get off her, “he responded that everything was ‘cool,’ as though nothing had occurred,” the report says.
When the woman and her friends confronted the man outside the fraternity house, one of the men said they “had identified the wrong person” and pointed the women in another direction and then ran off, according to the report.
One of the friends gave chase but stopped when she encountered a university police officer, the report says. A complaint was taken, and the 21-year-old was hospitalized.
The woman who says she was assaulted at the University of Chicago doesn’t attend the school, according to the police report. She didn’t respond to requests for comment.
But in an interview Tuesday, one of her friends reiterated much of what had been reported to police and said she was “really frustrated” over the time it took to conduct a rape kit. The friend, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said the 21-year-old is “obviously shaken up” and is concerned about her name getting out.
“I’ve already been getting like really gross messages because my name is out there,” the friend said.
The alert about a person of interest being identified came hours after The Chicago Maroon, the university’s independent student newspaper, published an article describing a video that appears to show a man matching the suspect’s description.
The suspect was described as a 5-foot-7 male with curly hair and was seen wearing a black, short-sleeve shirt and black pants, according to the police report.
The alert says the person of interest isn’t affiliated with the University of Chicago. He wasn’t named in the alert because he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
“This identification has been corroborated by key witness statements and video evidence from University cameras and license plate readers, all of which has been shared with [the Chicago Police Department] by the Department of Safety & Security,” the alert says.
The university’s chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi said no one affiliated with the fraternity was “involved or complicit with this incident,” according to a statement it posted on Instagram. The chapter said it was working alongside authorities to provide additional details to police.
The fraternity’s national headquarters said the chapter was told not to hold events or programs until an investigation is done.
As of Tuesday morning, no one was in custody, police said.
Catie Kirk, a graduate student in the University of Chicago’s engineering school, said the explosive allegations of a gang rape at Cornell had upset her so much that she had to limit her news consumption. Kirk said the alleged assault this weekend near her own campus raises fresh questions about fraternities.
“I think we’re starting to see an emergence of the fact that fraternity culture has some very ugly and dark parts to it, particularly in this modern day,” she said.