One week after a Georgetown senior was injured in a shooting off campus, another student was assaulted only a few blocks away.
According to police reports, two men attacked Kevin Behseresht (COL ’06) as he walked on the 3400 block of Prospect Street early Saturday morning. As one man grabbed Behseresht by the neck, the other demanded his money while jamming an object Behseresht believed to be a gun into his chest, a police report said. Behseresht handed $25 to the assailants, who fled on foot down the street.
Behseresht did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
Saturday’s incident occurred in an area of Georgetown at least one official said is dangerous due to a lack of lighting. Brett Clements (COL ’07), a commissioner on the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, said that a proposal by the commission to add a streetlight close to the area, at the intersection of Prospect and Bank Streets, was initially denied by the District Department of Transportation, but, with the spate of recent crime, safety improvements are more likely to be approved.
Vice President for University Safety David Morrell also said he believes that the latest assault will likely convince the DDOT to reverse its earlier decision and allow the installation of the streetlight.
The ANC proposal to the DDOT was supported by the Student Safety Advisory Board, a student group on campus. Erin Barbato (COL ’06), a member of the board, said that the prevailing opinion among students is that many heavyily-trafficked streets off campus are poorly lit.
“Last spring, we did a survey asking students how they feel about general safety issues,” Barbato said. “A majority of the students polled expressed the view that the Georgetown area is just too dark.”
In a campus-wide public safety alert issued last night, the university also said that early Monday morning, a student reported seeing an unknown male enter a townhouse on the 1200 block of 36th Street to the Department of Public Safety. No injuries or stolen property were reported, the alert said.
