BYUI DEFENDS SEX ASSAULT ALERT SENT TO STUDENTS
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REXBURG – Brigham Young University-Idaho is defending its decision to notify students and faculty earlier this week of a reported sex assault.
On Monday, officials sent an email informing the campus community that the Rexburg Police Department was investigating a sexual assault on a student. The message said the incident reportedly took place Sunday night at an off-campus location.
The Rexburg Police Department confirms officers are actively investigating the alleged incident but Captain Randy Lewis said it did not happen Sunday night.
He told EastIdahoNews.com the email may have been the result of a three-week-old incident reported in the daily police log on June 13. According to that report, officers were asked to check on a woman who expressed suicidal thoughts to an acquaintance via text message. The victim told the acquaintance she was pregnant and the acquaintance believed the pregnancy was due to a sexual assault. Police located the victim and she was safe.
BYU-Idaho is standing by its decision to send the email message earlier this week.
“Notifications like the one sent on Monday are issued out of concern for the safety and well-being of BYU-Idaho students and employees and to be in compliance with a federal law known as the Clery Act,” university spokesman Marc Stevens said in a statement. “This law requires us to provide timely warning to the campus community when the university is made aware of a significant crime that represents a serious or continuing threat.”
“In this instance, the notification was made based on the information available to us at the time about the alleged crime,” Stevens continued. “This is why the message used the word ‘reportedly’ to describe the assault.”
Lewis said the Rexburg Police Department and BYU-Idaho have a good working relationship and mistakes like this rarely occur.