Prof hospitalized after off-campus assault

and Maureen Tkacik A Graduate School of Fine Arts professor suffered serious wounds to his head after an unidentified man repeatedly beat him with a pistol -- accidentally discharging it at one point -- during an attempted mugging near campus early yesterday morning, police said. Assistant Fine Arts Dean Lindsay Falck, 64, was getting out of his Geo Metro outside his house on the 200 block of South St. Marks Square when he was attacked, University Police Det. Gary Heller said. The assailant, who was hiding inside a car and approached Falck from behind, never demanded anything from the architecture professor, who had been returning home from a studio in Meyerson Hall. Falck, who said he thought in the dim lighting that the chrome pistol was a knife, grabbed the man's wrists, struggling for a few moments before the man knocked him to the ground and began beating him over the head with the handle of the gun. After the gun discharged, the assailant -- presumably panicking -- ran back to his car and fled west on Walnut Street, Falck said. Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's emergency room, where Falck's wife rushed him after the incident, discovered gunpowder burns on Falck's shirt collar. "I was really lucky. That guy could have shot me," Falck said last night after receiving 37 stitches. "I vowed I would never retaliate if I was mugged, [but] he never asked for my wallet or anything." Despite his wounds, which included one laceration "right down to the skull," Falck, a native South African who has lived in University City for 11 years, was not fazed by the assault. "I've never been paranoid," he said. "I've seen a lot of violence in Cape Town." By contrast, Falck called University City "one of the best places in the world" to live. He said he felt security in the area had "improved enormously" since the murder of University biochemist Vladimir Sled -- a personal friend -- on the 4300 block of Larchwood Avenue in October 1996. Many residents of Falck's block professed their loyalty to the normally peaceful street while repeating the customary calls for increased police patrols. "This is a quiet street and nothing happens," said Meredith Jacob, a student at the nearby Restaurant School. But Jacob, who witnessed the incident from her window, added that she is "going to be scared to come out of my house." Several others focused instead on more positive occurrences -- like a block-party planning meeting earlier in the evening that drew 15 residents of the street.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.