On Tuesday night between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, four female students were allegedly assaulted by two teenage males on bicycles between Studzinski Recital Hall and Coles Tower. 

Both of the two teenagers were apprehended and identified by the four students that night and have been charged with class D misdemeanors for unlawful sexual touching. One of the suspects was also in possession of hashish oil and charged with a drug crime. Since the two are juveniles, their names will not be publicly released.

Both suspects were issued criminal trespass orders, banning them from campus.
The Office of Safety and Security quickly responded after receiving a call from a student who had her books knocked out of her hands by the two on the bicycles. Security received three other calls within minutes of the first one. 

“We learned later on that there was some inappropriate touching involved [in the first incident],” said Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols. “[The three] other calls were coming in [as we were responding to the first one] and reporting that people had come up to them on bicycles and smacked them on the buttocks, which is a form of assault of course, so we responded as security officers and immediately notified the Brunswick Police Department (BPD).”

 The two males then ran away, and Security found one of them attempting to conceal himself behind a rock near Quinby House. 

The other biker found his way to Brunswick Apartments where he convinced a group of Bowdoin students who had not yet been notified of the alleged assaults to drive him back to his family’s home in Freeport.  

“They thought he was a poor lost teenager that needed help,” said Nichols. “It was only when the students were driving back to campus after having dropped the [teenager] off [that] they had read the security alert that had come out, and later on they notified security, [saying], ‘We think we might have helped the guy escape.’”

 By this time, Security and BPD had already learned the identity of the alleged assaulter who had found his way to Freeport from the individual they had apprehended. Freeport Police then brought the male back to campus so that the four victims could identify him. 

Nichols stressed the importance of a quick response from the students.

 “The prompt reporting was critical but also the very effective response by Security and law enforcement was critical because these two could have easily gotten away,” he said. “The fact that we were able to quickly wrap this up I think kept the anxiety level on campus down to almost nothing as opposed to had they been unidentified [because] then students, rightfully, become a little more anxious.”

The two males have been released to their parents and are set to go to juvenile court on June 15. According to Nichols, they could receive up to one year of jail time.