A disgruntled former-student continues his barrage of prank calls, the university loses two of its even-toed ungulates in a single evening and an assault casts an ominous cloud over strange times at Campus Security.
Nearly a decade of nonsense continued as a disgruntled former U of C student, expelled in 1999, continued harassing Campus Security. Since that time, and from various locations including Edmonton, Toronto and Norway, the individual has placed more than 1,000 prank calls to Campus Security–sometimes as many as 15-20 per weekend. His most recent barrage of calls is suspected to have been in Dec., when a man claiming to be in Student Family Housing–though withholding his specific location–reported that he was thinking of harming his wife. Campus Security’s investigation discovered the claim was false and deemed it another prank from the man. The harasser, who apparently lacks creativity and relies mainly on expletives and other unprintable vulgarities, recently messed-up.
“About two months ago the phone number he was calling from came up on display,” said Fritz. “One of the supervisors [was] able to use the internet and trace the phone call to a phone booth in Toronto. Campus Security then called the Toronto police, who found him and warned him not to continue these phone calls.”
The campus deer population suffered a gruesome nightmare, losing two of its members in a single evening. Fish and Wildlife officers were called upon both times to euthanize the unfortunate artiodactyls, one of whom was found in Lot 20 with a broken leg, the other having been hit on Crowchild Trail. Fritz noted that only once during his ten-year tenure at Campus Security had Fish and Wildlife had to deal with a deer-related disturbance before that night.
“Once, we had a deer that was basically grazing on the lawn and grass here,” said Fritz. “These ten and twelve-year-old boys [from a day camp] decided to chase the deer, resulting in the deer running through a plate glass window.”
Nov. also saw an abhorrent assault on a female student by a man who followed her to campus from downtown via the C-Train. The victim was transported by EMS to the Rockyview hospital, while her assailant was handed over to the Calgary Police Service.
“It was a tragic situation involving a victim that was attacked on campus,” said Campus Security director Lanny Fritz. “Luckily, a quick response by students, a professor and a Campus Security officer resulted in the offender being apprehended, preventing the assault from becoming more serious.”
Disturbingly, the incident was echoed a month later when an attempted sexual assault was reported east of the university LRT station. A campus- wide security alert was issued.