Police escorted a man in handcuffs out of Huntsman Hall on Monday around 12:30 a.m., College freshman Elizabeth Beugg, who witnessed the events, said.
She was on the third floor of Huntsman looking for a group study room when she noticed police standing outside the computer lab. Her friend — also in attendance — approached the police and relayed to Beugg that a man in the computer lab had been reported for some sort of suspicious behavior.
She added that her friend informed her of the police’s intent to take the individual in question to the hospital for mental evaluation.
Beugg remembered that it took “quite some time” — maybe 10 or 15 minutes — to coax the man out of the third floor computer lab. He started shouting, Beugg said, yelling, “Don’t touch me; you’re sexually assaulting me,” to the police, but after some time he started to cooperate.
Beugg was able to see the man, and she said he looked a bit older than the average college student, but a Huntsman security guard manager who did not give his name said the man was an undergraduate student. The security guard manager also said that the man’s roommates had reported that they thought he might hurt himself, which is why Penn Police officers were sent to check on him.
The police succeeded in bringing the man into the elevator in handcuffs, Beugg said. She said she assumes he was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania afterwards. The security guard manager confirmed that the man was taken to HUP.
However, Beugg said that the situation was “low-key” overall — the police were so calm that she did not even notice them at first.
“The only truly disruptive thing I heard was that [the man] started yelling,” she said.
The Huntsman security guard manager said being confronted by the police caused the man to become “a little rowdy.”
A DP editor who was also present in a GSR at the time confirmed these events.
The Division of Public Safety did not respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story. It was last updated at 6:15 p.m. Check back for updates.
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