Hanover Police said Monday that they had identified persons of interest in Sunday morning’s reported assault.
Police chief Charlie Dennis said that the victim, 53, was allegedly assaulted outside Roberts Flowers on West Wheelock Street July 27 at 1:33 a.m.
The victim is not a College employee, Dennis said, though initial reports from Safety and Security identified him as such.
Hanover Police have continued talking to witnesses to collect more information to make a reasonable arrest, Dennis said. According to witnesses, he said, a man and a woman were involved in an altercation with the victim but added that police do not know their exact roles in the assault or their motives.
Hanover Police will investigate the case, though Safety and Security first saw the victim.
In a Sunday interview, Kinne confirmed that an officer had seen two individuals fleeing the scene and that witnesses said two people had assaulted the victim.
Dennis said that Sunday’s report and the July 2 assault and robbery on the Green do not seem to be correlated.
“I wouldn’t say it’s an alarming rate, but it’s something we want to take seriously,” he said. “We want to see if we can make a difference and mitigate it in the future.”
Town manager Julia Griffin said that last Sunday’s assault and the July 2 assault, in which a male student of the College was attacked, both involved alcohol. The town will talk to local bars to ensure that they do not over-serve their customers, she said.
“We certainly have not seen two assaults like this within in a month before,” she said.
Griffin noted she does not want residents to be “unduly alarmed.” She said that Hanover Police patrol campus and downtown Hanover heavily, and the police will be especially vigilant of the area where the assault took place until they better understand the case.
“This is typically not a community where we have to worry about these things,” she said. “It’s not a big city, but we still suffer from big city criminal elements.”
Roberts Flowers floral designer Michael Reed said that though it is unusual that an assault case took place on a busy road, he does not feel unsafe because he does not stay at the store late at night.
More than two incidents would be necessary to identify a changing trend, said executive editor of Campus Safety Magazine Robin Hattersley-Gray, noting that it is impossible to tell with current evidence whether the close timings of the assault marked anything more than coincidence.
All of the female students interviewed expressed a concern for their safety, and several other students expressed their surprise at the incidents.
“Whether you live on or off-campus, you need to be aware and vigilant,” Olivia Samson ’16 said.
Rory Page ’16 said that he thinks campus is mostly safe but upon learning that the recent incident happened on the street he lives, he became more vigilant and wary of his surroundings while walking home at night.
Yejadai Dunn ’16 said that these incidents attracted attention because of Hanover’s reputation for safety.
“It has probably put me more on an edge,” Dunn said. “I was walking home last night and I was actually thinking about people around me, which I never do.”
Mac Keyser ’16 said that he thinks the campus is generally safe, but he wonders whether these incidents are related to a lowered campus population over the summer.
Increased patrols or cars parked at visible spots on busy nights such as weekends might deter crime, Arthur Santry ’16, who lauded Safety and Security’s efforts, said.
