A Facebook post from Holly Stevens Wildt shared an incident that happened Sunday on campus.
She described it as a “suspicious encounter” that has been happening within the last week.
“A mom friend was walking the path near the USI baseball fields and in front of her was a college girl runner,” she said. “A man stepped out from between the porta potty’s and took off in a jog towards the college girl and heading towards the woods.”
She said the woman who saw the college student running started to shout at her as if she knew who she was, trying to help her out by warning her. Later she then went back to her parked car and decided to stay and watch out for any more occurrences.
She said the man acting suspiciously had gone back to the porta potties and paced around.
“Then he saw another girl running in his direction and started towards her,” she said. “At this point, my friend in her car drove quickly to the college girl and told her to come to her car window quickly.”
After stating that she took the college students back to the dorms, she went on about how girls needed to be aware of their surroundings. She then attempted to identify the man as a Hispanic, but could only see his mouth.
“The man seemed to be Hispanic or Latino, wearing black baggy pants, a hoodie and a thermal shirt, a sock hat with a ball cap over it and big black glasses,” she said. “You could only visually see his mouth of his face.”
This caught the attention of the EvansvilleWatch and Public Safety.
EvansvilleWatch took to Facebook and made a statement about the situation. They then contacted Public Safety for more details and discovered that it was not a Hispanic male, but a white male.
They said in their own post, “While we would never downplay potential threats or risk to public safety, we should remain factual and shut down any conflation of the facts that present an untrue story or narrative unfair to certain people groups.”
The report they were given by Public Safety is as follows:
“Yesterday afternoon there was a report received by USI Public Safety of a white male, wearing a sock hat, approx 5’7” that was making some students uncomfortable with his presence near or on the trails on the southern side of campus. In conjunction with Vanderburgh Sheriff’s Office, they are investigating the report.”
USI Public Safety responded to the report (Holly Stevens Wildt’s Facebook post) with what they found from camera footage and what they determined after reviewing it.
“After reviewing camera footage with Public Safety, that individual [the college student] was able to identify the person in question,” they said. “After further review of the footage, it was determined there was no suspicious behavior and the situation reported was a misunderstanding”
EvansvilleWatch and Public Safety expressed the importance of following safety measures while walking on the trails. Measures such as being aware of surroundings, keeping the volume of earbuds or headphones down, staying hydrated and so on. Evansville watch reminds everyone to stop with narratives and stories that can hurt different groups and cohorts alike as well as remembering that the trails close between dusk and dawn.
