Peeping incident and attempted robbery mar the end of 2011

Just before noon on Friday, Dec. 9th, 2011, two UH Hilo students waited outside of the piano room in Portable Building 8A. From between the wooden sidewalk slats one of the women spied movement beneath her feet. She was alarmed to see a human eye gaze up at her from between the boards.

"At first, I thought it was a cat or a dog or something, but it was too big," she recalled. "All of a sudden, I saw this eye pop out at me." She nudged the student next to her and told her there was someone under the walkway.

UH Hilo student Richard Gomez found the man crawling out from underneath the walkway and asked him what he was doing. "He just sort of mumbled and started to walk away quickly towards the gym where they dance," Gomez explained in an interview. Gomez and another student, Justin Chittams, were alerted by the stranger's hasty retreat, and they began running after him. "Justin ran around the left side of the gym and I around the right, and when we got to the other side we caught the guy on the grass near the bus stop." Two county workers happened to be driving by at the time and stopped at the site of the commotion. They thwarted the man's progress towards the street leaving him outnumbered and cornered. Gomez said that, "Because, I guess, since Justin and I were dressed so nicely for our juries they immediately identified the perpetrator as the bad guy."

Sam Gerweck, another student performing that day, came out of his jury act to see the confrontation and ran over to assist. Gerweck's presence completed the force necessary to contain the trespasser until police arrived.

Gomez said, "The man realized that there was no chance for escape as he was now surrounded by a rather large, angry Mexican, a big white boy who used to play college football, and a stereotypical aggressive, intimidating large black male." By this point the man had temporarily given up trying to flee the scene. "We convinced him that it was in everybody's best interest to come back with us to security, who responded rapidly and in an efficient manner."

The woman who noticed the trespasser had called security as soon as the men took off running. She had also activated the emergency alarm located on the north side of the portable building. She confirmed the quick response from both the male students and the security officers that led to the man's detainment. Police soon arrived at the behest of campus security and arrested the man. He repeatedly tried to struggle free from the handcuffs after he was in custody.

The female student expressed how uncomfortable she was during the incident, but she was "really glad Sam, Rich and Justin were there as supporters to go and get him," she explained. "I feel safer now than I did at that moment."

According to the Daily Public Crime Log kept by UH Hilo's Department of Campus Security, the "violation of privacy" garnered the individual a Trespass Warning notice. This notice tells the recipient that their actions have warranted an interdiction against being present in a specific location for one year.

This incident came on the heels of an attempted purse snatching just three days before. At around 8:00 p.m. on Dec. 6, a 24 year-old UH Hilo student was walking on the concrete sidewalk between the back of the Performing Arts Center and Portable Building 8A. A masked assailant rushed her from behind and tried to steal her purse. The woman fought back and was able to hang on to her purse despite suffering a few minor injuries she later declined medical treatment for. The would-be thief fled on foot and has not yet been located.

With both incidents occurring so close to one another, the question of campus safety may be on the lips of students who find themselves alone on the UH Hilo campus. To see if this is the case or not, Ke Kalahea reporter Bren Chance and photographer Hi‘inae Miller asked several students if they feel safe on campus.

Here's what they had to say:

"Could use more lighting in the parking lots." - Dereck Peralto, junior in Visual Arts

"Good so far, but I just started here." - Early Childhood Education major Thalsbeth Ferriera

"Safe." - Art major Anna Meyer in her junior year

"I feel most comfortably safe." - Ashley Wells, an English major in her sophomore year

"A tough manly guy like me, not too much to worry about. It would be nice if the university put more emphasis on safety for women." – Communications major Anthony Santoro

"Safer than on other campuses. I was originally going to attend a school in North Carolina, but backed out because I didn't feel safe. It was too big of a school." - Katie Kile, freshman in Culinary Arts