Group cheered as woman sexually assaulted at University of Chicago fraternity, police report says

She came to a fraternity party this weekend near the University of Chicago campus, where she told Chicago police she danced and had a few drinks.

But as Saturday night gave way to Sunday morning, the 21-year-old said she was “starting to feel bad” and feeling unwell. sexually assaulted at home Alpha Epsilon Pi5625 S. University Ave., according to a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

His account was confirmed by two friends, who told police they had intervened by bursting into the toilet at the time of the attack.

The case has placed the University of Chicago, one of the nation’s premier academic institutions, at the center of a national debate over sexual assault on college campuses, fueled by another reported attack, this one at a fraternity house at Cornell University in upstate New York.

On Tuesday afternoon, the University of Chicago issued an alert saying “a person of interest has been identified.” No arrests have been reported.

The woman’s friends said a group of men tried to stop them from entering the bathroom after the men were seen “clapping and appearing to encourage the activity inside,” according to the report.

The group, consisting of up to five men, first told the woman’s friends that she was not in the bathroom, according to the report. When the other two women stepped forward, a man grabbed one of them by the hair while the other picked the bathroom lock, according to the report.

The 21-year-old woman was “not fully conscious” when she was found in the bathroom, according to the report, which said she and the man were both partially undressed.

After one of the woman’s friends told him to get rid of her, “he responded that everything was ‘cool,’ as if nothing had happened,” the report states.

When the woman and her friends confronted the man outside the fraternity house, one of the men said they “had the wrong person” and pointed the women in another direction before running away, according to the report.

One of the friends chased them but stopped when she encountered a university police officer, the report states. A complaint was filed and the 21-year-old was hospitalized.

The woman who says she was attacked at the University of Chicago does not attend the school, according to the police report. She did not respond to requests for comment.

But in an interview Tuesday with the Chicago Sun-Times, one of her friends reiterated much of what was reported to police and said she was “really frustrated” by the time it took to administer a rape kit to her. The friend, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said the 21-year-old was “visibly shaken” and worried about her name being released.

“I’ve already received some really disgusting messages because my name is out there,” the friend said.

The alert about the identification of a person of interest came hours after the Chicago Maroon, the university’s independent student newspaper, published a story describing a video that appears to show a man matching the description of the suspect.

The suspect was described as a 5-foot-7 man with curly hair and was seen wearing a short-sleeved black shirt and black pants, according to the police report.

The alert states that the person of interest is not affiliated with the University of Chicago. He was not named in the alert because he has not been charged with any crime.

“This identification was corroborated by statements from key witnesses and video evidence from university cameras and license plate readers, all of which were shared with (the Chicago Police Department) by the Department of Safety and Security,” the alert states.

The university chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi said no one affiliated with the fraternity was “involved or complicit in this incident,” according to a statement posted on Instagram. The branch said it was working alongside authorities to provide additional details to police.

The fraternity’s national headquarters said the chapter was ordered not to hold events or programs until an investigation is completed.

As of Tuesday evening, no one was in custody, police said.

Catie Kirk, a graduate student at the University of Chicago’s engineering school, said the explosive allegations of gang rape at Cornell upset her so much that she had to limit her news consumption. Kirk said this weekend’s alleged assault near his own campus raises new questions about fraternities.

“I think we’re starting to see the emergence of the fact that there are some very ugly and dark aspects to fraternity culture, especially in this day and age,” she said.