A female Northwestern student was the victim of a battery Saturday night in the south residential quads, according to a security alert posted Sunday morning by University Relations.
The student was struck by one of four young men at about 10:45 p.m. The men then yelled obscenities at her before leaving the area, the alert said.
The student was not hurt and did not seek medical attention, according to the statement.
The incident is the third time this school year that an NU student was the victim of a crime on the Evanston campus. A student’s wallet and cell phone were taken at Hinman Avenue and Clark Street by a group of five to 10 teenagers on Oct. 4. A week later, a student’s purse was taken near the intersection of Sherman Avenue and Emerson Street.
A fourth incident, another battery, occurred about a mile south of the Chicago campus in August near an intersection in the northern part of the Loop. Four juveniles were charged in relation to the incident, which occurred a few days before law school classes began.
Police said the suspects in Saturday’s battery were described as four teenage males. Two were reported wearing blue basketball shirts while the others wore hooded sweatshirts. Quad residents said they saw a group of young men meeting the report’s description in various areas of the quad, standing in a cluster and peeking in windows.
Weinberg sophomore Margaret Nevrivy said she was leaving her sorority house, Pi Beta Phi, 636 Emerson St., with a group of friends between 10:30 p.m. and 10:40 p.m., shortly before the reported attack occurred, when they saw a group of young men meeting the description.
“We were going to meet a friend at the shuttle stop, but we stopped and waited when we saw them,” Nevrivy said. “They were walking towards Pi Phi and yelling things in Spanish.”
Nevrivy said a friend spoke to the group of young men and told them to leave the girls alone. The friend then called 911, she said.
“We all agreed then none of us was coming home alone last night,” Nevrivy said.
Students throughout the quad who saw the young men said they looked like high school-age students and out of place on campus. Nevrivy said she was surprised by the time of the incident.
“Everyone’s walking around in the quad at 10:30 at night,” she said. “There were so many people around.”
Reach Laura Olson at [email protected].
