WASHINGTON – Police are still searching for suspects in two assaults of local university students and an armed robbery that took place near a college campus in the District.
A Georgetown University student told authorities she was beaten and sexually assaulted at 36th Street near N Street in Northwest — one block from the southeastern corner of Georgetown’s campus — just after 2 a.m. Sunday.
The suspect is described as a white man between 18 and 22 years old with short brown hair, the school’s Department of Public Safety says. He was wearing a dark shirt and stands between 5-foot-11 and 6 feet tall.
An extensive search of the surrounding area was unsuccessful, according to the Department of Public Safety. Officers warned students not to walk alone and use campus shuttle buses for transportation.
Also on Sunday, an 18-year-old student at the University of Maryland says she woke up to find a strange man in her dorm room touching her thigh around 4 a.m., according to University Police spokesman Capt. Marc Limansky.
“It just so happened that the roommate walked in while that was happening,” Limansky says. “She woke up, was startled, roommate walked in, confronted the guy, and said, ‘What are you doing here?'”
Limansky says the suspect responded, “‘I was looking for a friend on a different floor,’ which was a lie. And he left. As they looked around, they realized her laptop had been packaged in an apparent attempt to steal the property.”
The student lives on the seventh floor of Cumberland Hall on campus, according to student newspaper The Diamondback. Witnesses told University Police two suspects were walking the hall, jiggling door handles of several other rooms on the floor before finding the victim’s door unlocked.
Limansky says it is “not an unusual tactic for people to get themselves into a residence hall and look for items of value.”
The first suspect in the University of Maryland incident is described as a black man, standing 5-foot-8. Police say he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a gray baseball cap.
The second suspect is only described as a black man who witnesses described as apparently lurking in the hallway, reports The Diamondback.
An email alert went out to all students and faculty at Maryland after the incident warning them to be vigilant, according to University Police.
Police do not believe the assaults are related.
Students at Georgetown also received an alert Sunday night after two suspects held up two students at 33rd and N Streets in Northwest. One suspect asked for a cigarette and then pulled out a handgun, D.C. police say.
The students described the suspects as black men between 20 and 30 years old. One is described as standing between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-9 with a dark complexion and dreadlocks. The second suspect stands between 5-foot-11 and 6-foot-1 with dreadlocks.
WTOP’s Kristi King contributed to this report. Follow Kristi and WTOP on Twitter.
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