In the span of two days, two area university students were abducted and raped, leaving some to wonder if there is a connection.
The first incident, which took place on the morning of Feb. 24, involved the abduction of a Tulane student from St. Charles Avenue to Audubon Park, where she was robbed and raped. A day later, a Loyola student encounted the same incident at around 2 p.m.
“I was walking down Broadway and Zimple,” said the Loyola student, who, due to the personal nature of the issue, wished to remain anonymous. “I was walking to Walgreens to pick up some stuff. I dropped my cell phone, and I went to pick it up. As I came back up, somebody told me not to turn around, and I did, and I just got hit in the face. I don’t remember a lot.”
Someone took her into a car, then blindfolded her and bound her hands in front of her.
“I was raped, and he continually hit me in the face,” she said. “Then I was released in a park.”
Initially, the student didn’t report the incident. After seeing the e-mailed BOLO regarding the rape of the Tulane student, however, she decided to report her own.
“I thought it was really important that there be a BOLO sent out just because it’s been like a chain, and it needs to be taken seriously,” she said. “I actually didn’t think people would pay attention to the BOLO but I’ve heard a lot of people talking about it and that made me feel really good about it.”
Yet some people, she noted, have not believed her story.
“As far as people questioning me, like ‘Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you run? It happened in broad daylight, how could this happen?’ I just think it’s important for people to know that you can say you’ve walked down a certain street a million times, but it’s a really naïve thing to say because these things do happen,” she said. “Until you’re put into that kind of situation, you just don’t know what you would do.”
The response overall, however, has been supportive. The incident hasn’t changed the student’s opinion of Loyola.
“I think Loyola is a great community. I’ve been getting so much support from groups of people that I know and professors here. I wouldn’t leave,” she said. “If anything, it reinforces that I’m in a community that cares about me and cares about its students.”
Although she has reported the incident to university police, they haven’t started an investigation.
“I don’t know if starting an investigation is something that I want yet,” she said.
According to Officer Janssen Valencia of the New Orleans Police Department, there have been no developments in the rape investigation of the Tulane student.
“The case is still ongoing. The only lead we have is the description of the person,” he said.
In addition to the rape of the Loyola student, NOPD reported four rapes in the immediate area around Tulane and Loyola since the beginning of the school year.
The student hopes that others will learn from her experience.
“Be aware of your surroundings, regardless of what time of day it is, regardless of how safe a community may be, regardless of how you may react or think you may be prepared,” she said. “It may sound really stupid, but just do everything you can to keep yourself safe because you can never predict when these things will happen.”
Masako Hirsch can be reached at [email protected].
(Dan Helfers/The Maroon)
