Student sculpture embobies nostalgia from early 2000s. VERVE B4
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STUDENTS’ VOICE SINCE 1887
W E D N E S D AY, O C T O B E R 7 , 2 0 1 5
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Investigation ongoing in two reported cases of sexual assault
RIDING THE
By Malachi Petersen
Malachi.Petersen@coyotes.usd.edu
like I was ensuring the safety of people at that point anymore, I was more or less contributing to their delinquency or their habit, which I wasn’t about,” he said. “I went for that job because I wanted to help people and make sure they were safe.” Though the bus often saw close to the same amount of people before midnight as after while Aperans was working, he said rarely the same people that got a ride to a party got a ride home later in the evening. “On paper it looks like we’re taking care of the right amount of people, but the reality (is) I could pick someone up at 10 o’clock, drop them off at a house party and not see them again ever for the rest of the night,” he said. “And I have no idea what happened to them,
No arrests have been made and investigations are still ongoing regarding two reported sexual assaults of USD students that happened over Dakota Days. Both assaults, which the Vermillion Police Department believes are unrelated, happened Sept. 27, and at least one of them was reported to police Sept. 28. One of the assaults happened on-campus in Coyote Village and one happened off-campus. USD wasn’t notified of at least one of the assaults until Sept. 30. On the evening of Sept. 30, students were alerted to the two assaults by an email and text alert from USD University Relations via the Everbridge alert system. The system is usually reserved for immediate threats to campus. One of the emails sent to students contained photos of three “persons of interest.” Matt Betzen, VPD Chief, said Monday that the photos published by University Relations did not come from VPD. He added that one of the men in the photos has BETZEN been cleared of any involvement in both reported assaults. “One of the subjects that the photos were released of has been totally exonerated,” he said. “He wasn’t at the scene.” As for how the photos were obtained, Betzen said he believes they came from social media, but doesn’t know how USD got them. “I’m kind of asking that question myself. In fact, the photos released are in none of our records,” he said. “I know where the photos came from. They’re Facebook photos, but they’re not part of us and they’re not part of our investigation.”
See BUS, Page A6
See ASSAULT, Page A8
‘DRUNK BUS’ Malachi Petersen I The Volante
A Safe Ride Bus comes to a stop outside of local bars on Main Street Saturday night to pick up commuters. During D-Days, Vermillion Public Transit ran a total of three buses on both Friday and Saturday night.
Service abused by some, former employee says By Ally Krupinsky Ally.Krupinsky@usd.edu
Though last week’s Dakota Days festivities resulted in a spike in citations from the Vermillion Police Department across the board compared to a normal week, only three DWI arrests were made. The three Vermillion Public Transit buses filled to the brim with intoxicated students may have had something to do with that. Funded through the Department of Highway Safety, Safe Ride is a program that provides a taxi-like service to prevent those who have been drinking from driving. A Safe Ride bus runs from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays almost every weekend during the school year. In the spirit of homecoming week, three buses ran last Fri-
day and Saturday, one of which from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. on game day. And while there’s no lack of demand for its services, a previous employee of Safe Ride believes that service is not always respected. Jon Aperans, a junior criminal justice major, became a Safe Ride monitor for the same reason he’s going to work in law enforcement. He wants to keep people safe. Aperans worked as a Safe Ride employee for nearly two semesters, but decided to quit last spring because of the continuous abuse he was seeing of the Safe Ride service. “Lots of people don’t actually know what the policies for the bus are, and it lead to a lot of conflict and a lot of me yelling at people or having to kick them
off because they refused to follow the rules which they didn’t know about in the first place,” he said. Rules like no fighting or no alcohol, especially, are policies Aperans said many students were either unaware of or decided to ignore during his time as a monitor. Another issue that led to Aperans’ resignation was the way in which Safe Ride was being used as a way to get to parties, rather than a ride home. Picking up a group of about 20 first-years from North Complex to take to a house party was a common occurrence, he said. And because Safe Ride operates on a “no questions asked” basis, there’s no real way to combat the issue, Aperans said. “At that point, for me, that’s why I left. Because I didn’t feel
VPD says number of citations ‘average’ for Dakota Days By Mason Dockter
Mason Dockter@coyotes.usd.edu
The Vermillion Police Department was kept reasonably busy from Wednesday to Sunday last week, issuing 20 citations for open containers, 18 underage consumption tickets and had 14 incidents involving drugs or drug paraphernalia, VPD Chief Matt Betzen said. VPD also saw three disorderly conduct incidents, one assault on an officer, six incidents of public urination/defecation, three resistances to arrest, three public nuisances, three domestic assaults, three disorderly houses, three DWI’s, one trespassing incident and two incidents of fraud or impersonation. Betzen said these numbers represent a fairly typical Dakota Days. Though Betzen described the week as “probably average,” it was a somewhat grim one for the department, which responded to two suicides and multiple reported sexual assaults. A total of four reported sexual assaults have happened in Vermillion in a one-week time frame. The University Police Department did not yet have all of its information compiled for Dakota Days. During last year’s D-Days, VPD issued 36 tickets for open containers and 37 for underage consumption of alcohol, Betzen said. Previous years varied sig-
Mason Dockter I The Volante
A Vermillion Police Department officer pulls over a car Friday night during Dakota Days week. nificantly, with only 13 open containers and 20 underage consumptions in 2012, but 40 open containers and 30 underage consumptions the year before. The department also took people on a virtual ride along this D-Days using its Twitter account, which was followed closely by a number of students. For VPD, Twitter is “absolute-
ly a PR thing,” Betzen said. “(The use of ) Twitter and Facebook, from a law enforcement agency perspective, is to reach people,” he said. VPD used humor in many of its D-Days tweets, which all included the hashtag #vpdtweet: “Caught that runner, too. Sometimes you don’t have to be the fastest – just the soberest.” Another read, “Open con-
tainers are sort of like fish in a barrel, it seems. Officers out with some more.” Though there were multiple citations issued over DDays week, there were several students who opted to study or spend a quieter time with friends. “We didn’t really participate, we just did homework because all our teachers assigned too much,” sophomore Audra Van
Ekeren said of herself and her friends. Junior Richard Sauer felt that D-Days should be enjoyed thoroughly, but responsibly. “This was my first D-Days and, my opinion about it is, you shouldn’t be getting drunk on purpose, only, you know, have some alcohol if the moment is right ... just aim for having a good time,” Sauer said.