Update:NewsChannel 3 has learned that ECSU will be hiring an outside consulting firm to review how the school handles reported crimes on and off campus.
Elizabeth City, N.C. - Twenty-four-year-old Katherine Lowe knows from personal experience that campus police at Elizabeth City State University weren't properly investigating reported crimes on campus if at all.
“I`m just like okay, you know stuff is going to happen on a campus, why are ya`ll trying so hard to cover what happens up on this campus?” asked Lowe.
She says on four occasions between February and early April, Anthony Butler used his position as a residence security officer at Butler Hall to sexually assault her.
“He came into my room one night with a key about 3:30, 4 o`clock in the morning and after that, he kept knocking and knocking on the door and eventually the last time he pushed his way through,” says Lowe.
After pushing his way through her door and throwing her on the bed, she had enough. She says she reported him to campus police chief, Sam Beamon and that Beamon sent officers to her classroom to get her to write a statement.
"Everybody in my class was looking like, ‘Oh what did she do,’” says Lowe.
She eventually wrote the statement and says Beamon never turned it into the district attorney like he said he would.
Her statement did, however, make it to the ECSU human resources office where, she says, she was brought in and questioned about it.
They told her they were going to show it to her alleged attacker but would warn her first.
"They told me they were going to call me when that happened so I can duck and dodge him because he was still allowed on campus,” says Lowe.
Katherine tells NewsChannel 3 this isn't the first time she's had problems with campus police.
Four years ago, she left ECSU after her junior year.
She says she became extremely uncomfortable after reporting to campus police that her boyfriend at the time was abusive.
"It was just like nobody believed me, nothing I said. They just believed this boy because he knew a lady in student affairs who was friends with his family," says Lowe.
She recently came back to finish her senior year.
And, this time, Katherine says she wasn't going to let what happened with Anthony Butler slip through the cracks.
And, that's why she went to Elizabeth City Police who helped her report it to a Pasquotank County magistrate.
“They weren`t going to fail me a second time; They was gonna know, something was gonna be said, something was gonna be heard,” she says.
Since Butler's arrest in April, campus police chief, Sam Beamon, resigned and ECSU is now under the microscope for more than 120 reported crimes since 2007 that we never investigated including 18 sexual assaults.
Katherine says enough is enough and she's glad something is finally behind done.
“Do you really wanna go somewhere or have your sister or brother go somewhere where 126 crimes are being committed and nobody is saying anything,” says Lowe.
Related:
ECSU administrator says parents shouldn’t be worried
Officials: 125 crime reports at ECSU may not have been investigated properly
ECSU names new interim police chief
State now investigating ECSU after dorm leader is charged with assaulting student
