Details have emerged concerning a violent assault that occurred over Homecoming weekend outside of Wisemiller’s involving several Georgetown students. The Metropolitan Police Department expects to serve a warrant for the arrest of a Georgetown student suspected in the case shortly.

A male Georgetown student was assaulted around 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21 outside of Wisemiller’s. According to Lt. Brian Bray of MPD, the victim and two other students became involved in a verbal altercation in the deli and went outside. One student pushed the victim and another student “sucker punched” him, Bray said, causing the victim to fall face-first onto the concrete, fracturing his jaw. “We don’t know if it was the punch that knocked him out or the concrete,” Bray said.

None of the victim’s valuables were taken and no weapons were used, Bray said.

Alex Gushin (COL ’01) was in The Tombs next door when a man announced someone had been assaulted outside. “We came up afterward and saw [the victim] on the sidewalk,” she said. Gushin, who was in town for Homecoming events, said about 10 or 20 people had crowded around the scene of the crime by the time MPD and ambulances pulled onto Prospect Street. “Everyone was alarmed. Whoever had assaulted [the victim] was gone, I didn’t see him,” she said.

The police report identified the suspects as two white males in their early 20s, both approximately 6 feet to 6-foot-2 inches tall, weighing about 175 to 180 pounds.

Gushin said she and her friends did not stay at the scene. “We didn’t stay and look long because the sight was so shocking,” she said.

DetectiveDelroy Burton of MPD, who has been handling the case, said a warrant for the arrest of the Georgetown student who punched the victim would be issued in the near future. He said the name of the suspect could not be released. “It could jeopardize the investigation . It won’t be made public until there is closure in the case, meaning once the arrest is made.”

Bray said once the warrant is served, the suspected student would be arrested, arraigned on charges of aggravated assault, “due to the severity of the injuries” the victim suffered. The warrant, he said, would be valid for eight years. Charges will not be pressed against the second student, who pushed the victim, because he has cooperated with police, Bray said.

Burton said MPD has conducted numerous interviews with a variety of witnesses, including employees of Wisemiller’s and the panhandlers that frequent the corner.

Though the Georgetown Department of Public Safety often releases campus wide e-mails to inform the community of assaults that occur off campus, Director of DPS William Tucker said that because authorities had ascertained the identity of the suspect, the assault did not pose a potential threat to the community and information was not disseminated to students.

Gushin said she was distressed the assault had happened during Homecoming weekend. “People get in fights, its not the most abnormal thing to happen … As awful as it is, people don’t think twice until there’s a fight and something serious happens or someone dies,” Gushin said.