News from Westminster: ANOTHER Incident in North Village

by Abby Richardson

This year so far McDaniel has seen a good deal of change and even a dose of the dramatic when it comes to news around campus. There’ve been the major additions of the ‘Green N Go’ convenience store and the sleek new football stadium, both of which have received their own share of hot and cold reactions. There’s the confusion that has come with recent website changes, and the new McDaniel 1Card system. The recent story about a worm found in a student’s Glar salad. And the campus alert regarding an early morning robbery in North Village. With these happenings in mind, students have reason to be excited about the big new changes taking place, but also extra wary of their surroundings and the people they are with; especially during a fun night out.

An incident which occurred last weekend could not illustrate this point better.

Last Saturday morning around 8:45am, a North Village resident got up to get ready for work, to find a man she had never seen before in the living room of her apartment, lying on the ground and throwing up all over himself and the floor. Unsure of what to do at the sight of this scene, the resident went about making her morning coffee and found him a few minutes later, “sitting on a couch, and rocking back and forth in the fetal position.” Having confirmed that her housemates were also unacquainted with the man, and now considerably alarmed, the resident called Campus Safety.

Promptly at 9:10am, Campus Safety officer, Corporal Reed arrived, just as the man was about to leave the apartment. Corp. Reed politely stopped him, insisting he sit down in the apartment, and went about the usual protocol, asking for the man’s name and for his driver’s license. His absence of a state ID or driver’s license may have been the first hint something was off, but both Corp. Reed and the reporting resident felt something was suspicious about him from the start. As Mike Webster relayed, Corp. Reed could tell upon meeting that the suspect was not an actual student at McDaniel.

Corp. Reed contacted the other two Campus Safety Officers on duty at that time, and Westminster Police Department to verify the man’s identification, and see if he had any warrants out for his arrest. Sensing that ‘the jig was up’, the subject flew from the scene, and out of North Village, followed by Corp. Reed. Coming from the football field, Sgt. Collins anticipated the direction of the suspect’s flight and ran an intercept course, while WPD made their way to the scene. At around the area of 177 PA Ave, Corp. Reed catches him, almost simultaneous to the arrival of Sgt. Collins and WPD.

Along the way, near 171 PA Ave, the suspect was also spotted throwing a baggie of something out of his pocket and onto the ground, “then assumed to be drugs” as Mike Webster put it. A Campus Safety officer went back to find the baggie, and it was confirmed as drugs. WPD then took away the suspect and the drugs. As to the criminal history he was found to have, a warrant had in fact been put out for his arrest, issued July, 28th by the District Court in Carroll County on three charges; first degree assault, reckless endangerment, and endangerment while intoxicated.

So how did this even happen you may be wondering? The reporting resident had wondered the same thing. As Mike Webster’s record of the events also acknowledges, a party had occurred in her and her housemates’ apartment the night before, where the convict was present with a student and friend. At around 3am it seems the party mainly dispersed and the non-student became sick outside, where he also lost track of his friend. A housemate of the reporting resident admitted to letting the guy inside. The reporting resident also claims the man was a worker at the pub, and while probable, Mike Webster would not disclose a comment concerning the convict’s employment, as it is not within Campo’s jurisdiction to do so.

 

 

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