A UNC female student reported a man approached her, touched her inappropriately and then left the scene at the Friday Center's Park and Ride Lot shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday, according an Alert Carolina message sent by the University.
UNC police are investigating the incident as a sexual battery. Police searched the area after the incident but couldn't locate the man, according to the Alert Carolina sent just after 10 a.m.
"Someone grabbed my butt at the UNC Friday Center parking lot," the victim told 911. She was walking to the bus stop when the man popped out from behind a white van, touched and then disappear.
"I don't care because I have to go to class," the woman said on the call. "I'm afraid he might still be there."
The man was described as a black male in his mid-20’s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, with a medium build, a round face and a thin mustache, according to the Alert Carolina message.He wore light brown pants and a flat-brimmed baseball cap. No weapons were reported.
The AlertCarolina system is a security measure on UNC’s campus in compliance with the Clery Act, a federal statute that details how universities that receive federal funding report crime on and around campus. An alert is issued if there's a continuing danger, and if releasing the information doesn't compromise the ongoing investigation.
AlertCarolina has been criticized by students and community members for failing to send alerts — like when no alert was issued after a robbery on East Rosemary Street last March — and for taking too long, like when it took 45 minutes to release a message following the explosion on McCorkle Place in November last year or when a student was strangled near the Old Well last December.
It took about two hours for the University to send an alert Thursday morning, according to the time on the UNC police report.
Anyone with information should call 911 or contact the Chapel Hill-Carrboro-UNC Crime Stoppers at (919) 942-7515 or submit information online at Crime Stoppers online. Calls are confidential and anonymous.
