A third alleged rape was reported at Cal Poly on Monday, according to a University Police Department crime alert. According to the alert, the reported rape occurred in the victim’s room in Poly Canyon Village on May 15.
As of press time, University Police Chief Bill Watton said there was not a lot of information available.
“We can’t release too much, other than to say this is the third sexual assault alert issued on campus,” Watton said. “Pretty much all we can say at this time is that the suspects are unique to each case. They are not interrelated.”
This is the third reported sexual assault at Cal Poly within the last week. Associated Students Inc. President Sarah Storelli said although the number of alleged sexual assaults reported in the last week seems high, it, in fact, conforms to statistics.
“Besides that we all live in San Luis Obispo, and think it is relatively safe, the fact is that one in four students will be sexually assaulted while they are at college,” Storelli said. “It’s quite disturbing, but also eye-opening.”
However, Kyle Rosso, a history senior and Sexual Assault Free Environment Resource (SAFER) program volunteer, said the number of assaults is not surprising.
“It’s not that three rapes have occurred, it’s that three rapes have been reported,” Rosso said. “In a campus of roughly 10,000 women, approximately 395 rapes occur each year. That’s one a day, and some days two. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. What is uncommon is that they’re brave enough to report it.”
Rosso also said although the number of reports may raise concerns for safety, people should not be alarmed, or think students at Cal Poly are more likely to be victims of sexual assault.
“This doesn’t show that Cal Poly is more prone to sexual assault, it shows that people are confident in their resources,” he said. “It proves that it’s safer because these things are being reported, and because we respond to them this way.”
In response to the second alleged rape reported late last week, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong wrote in an email to the student body that he was forming a “task-force” comprised of Storelli, Academic Senate Chair Rachel Fernflores and Vice President for Student Affairs Cornel Morton to examine the school’s attitudes toward sexual assaults. Storelli said in light of the recent reported rape, the task force would be paying special attention to campus culture.
“Right now we don’t have any specifics on what the task force will do because our meeting is tomorrow,” Storelli said. “This is an immediate and evident problem, and when we sit down, we will talk about how to deal with this. Otherwise, we just need to educate ourselves, and all of the different groups (on campus) need to make a conscious effort to come together and deal with these issues.”
In a telephone interview, Armstrong said the task force committee will take on the subject in a “marathon-like” approach not because it is in the news but because it is important and students need to feel safe. He said he is “deeply disturbed” by the incidents and is anxious to meet with the committee.
“We’re going to focus on what we’ve been doing and we’re going to look at what’s been going on on campus to bring awareness and where we can make improvements, where we have gaps,” Armstrong said. “I do think its important that victims of sexual violence feel safe enough to bring these incidents to our attention so they can be investigated. If people don’t feel comfortable enough to bring these to our attention then we have a deep problem. We don’t want incidents like these to occur at all but if they do, then we want young men and young women to speak up and let’s get to the bottom of what’s going on … but we need to be very proactive.”
Anybody with information about the alleged rape is asked to call UPD at (805) 756-2281.
Leticia Rodriguez, Kaytlyn Leslie and Hannah Croft contributed to this article.