Undergrad Assaulted Outside Pennypacker

A bicycle-mounted attacker assaulted a Harvard undergraduate yesterday outside of Pennypacker on Harvard Street.

Yesterday’s indecent assault—the third this school year—took place at 3 p.m. when a Hispanic man, 18 to 20 years old and wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, approached the victim on bicycle.

He touched the woman inappropriately and headed off toward Central Square, said Steven G. Catalano, spokesman for the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).

The man was 5’6 with a buzz cut, and was riding what the witness called a “short bike,” Catalano said.

No words were exchanged between the victim and the suspect.

Officers from HUPD and the Cambridge Police Department searched the area but did not find the suspect.

Police said that there were other people out on the street in addition to the witness, the victim and the attacker, but these attacks sometimes go unnoticed unless the victims draw attention to themselves.

“These incidents occur very quickly and very often people walking by don’t know that it occurred,” Catalano said. This indecent assault—the 12th committed against Harvard students in the Square area since last October—is what HUPD formerly referred to as a “groping.”

The department recently switched to the statutory definition of the crime after complaints from the community about using a slang term like groping.

Massachusetts’ definition of indecent assault includes “offensive touching of the breasts, abdomen, buttocks, thighs or genital area.”

Catalano said yesterday’s assault did not seem related to previous attacks.

After the rash of indecent assaults last year, the College created the Harvard University Campus Escort Program (HUCEP) to replace SafetyWalk, a defunct late-night escort system that could no longer provide staffing when students called for company walking home. HUCEP provides student companions for walkers during late-night hours.

The attacks also helped convince Harvard and Cambridge to agree to install blue light call boxes in Cambridge Common, where one incident took place last year.

HUCEP, which can be reached at 617-384-8237, is available from 10:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 10:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday.

—Staff writer Jonathan P. Abel can be reached at abel@fas.harvard.edu.