Student Attacked Outside Lamont

An unidentified male approached a female student from behind and wrapped a thin wire around her neck early Tuesday morning before she kicked the unknown assailant and fled the area unharmed, according to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).

A crime alert e-mail sent by HUPD Tuesday afternoon stated that the undergraduate was assaulted in Harvard Yard, near Lamont and Houghton Libraries by the stairs going down towards Pusey Library. The attacker remains at large.

HUPD spokesman Steven G. Catalano declined to comment, stating that the incident is under investigation.

Within an hour of the reported attack, women who learned of the incident had already forwarded an advisory e-mail from the victim’s roommate to multiple House and other campus open lists.

The victim’s roommate, who was granted anonymity out of concern that her roommate not be identified, said that she sent out the cautionary e-mail to her Delta Gamma sorority sisters, some of whom she knew were still studying at Lamont Library at the time of the attack.

She added that some of the sisters then asked for the victim’s permission to forward the information to other lists in order to make the campus safer for those who were walking alone that night.

“I never asked them to forward the e-mail,” the student said, “but I thought it was good that they wanted to get the word out.”

She wrote in the e-mail that her roommate was on her way back to her room in Canaday from the DeWolfe Street apartments when an unidentified “taller person” attacked her.

“She was able to kick him in the groin and escape, but she didn’t get a good look at the person, and he is still out there,” the e-mail says.

The woman added that her roommate is “really physically fit” and was capable of thinking clearly during the attack.

“I can’t say that I would have been able to do the same,” she wrote, “and I would hate to see any one of you hurt.”

The victim declined to comment, saying that she did not feel comfortable talking about the incident.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.