Friend disputes police account of assault

The friend said police downplayed the severity of Sunday's assault. A close friend of the female University sophomore who reported that a knife-wielding man attacked her early Sunday morning in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall accused police of downplaying the seriousness of her friend's assault to the media and failing to accurately classify the incident as an attempted rape. While University Police officials were not immediately available last night to comment directly on the student's accusations, they have maintained that the incident -- which occurred in a basement bathroom in the Wharton School building, which is open 24 hours a day -- was not a sexual assault and have said that the girl's physical injuries were not as severe as the friend indicated. Elizabeth King, a sophomore at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., who described herself as the best friend of the Penn victim, made the accusations yesterday in a message on a public electronic bulletin board at the all-female school and repeated them last night to The Daily Pennsylvanian. King also accused police of failing to respond to the panic-button alarms the victim set off during the attack. Other sources close to the victim have made similar accusations, and the campus has been abuzz with rumors about what exactly happened. The victim herself, whose name had not been available on Sunday, has thus far refused to comment to the DP. King said the victim suffered multiple knife wounds, a black eye and "potential internal bleeding" in the head during the assault. University Police have described her wounds as being multiple cuts and bruises on her hands and face, without elaborating. According to King, the victim was studying in Steinberg-Dietrich and went to use the bathroom at about 2:45 a.m. She heard someone enter the bathroom while still in the stall but figured it was another woman. When the victim opened the stall door, a man holding a knife faced her, King said. Police described the suspect as a black male in his mid-20s, about 5'10" with a thin build and short hair. He was wearing a flannel shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers at the time of the alleged assault, according to police. "He said, 'Don't scream' or something to that effect, but she did [scream] anyway and that's when he attacked her," King said. "She told me, 'I knew I had to fight, because if I didn't, he would rape me.' " Because she was fighting back, the attacker banged her head repeatedly against the wall and the floor, threw her against the wall and attempted to slit her throat, King said. "To protect herself she put her hands around her neck and protected that area," said King, who added that the man cut her friend's hands, neck, arms and back while she was protecting her neck. "She has cuts all over the place because she was fighting for her life. He was just a crazy man with a knife," King said. King disputes the police account of how the incident proceeded from there. Police have said that the victim hit a panic alarm and ran from her assailant. According to King, no one responded to the two alarms the victim managed to push while being assaulted and that one of the buttons did not go off. Police said they believe both of the two alarms sounded. All of the alarms were tested on Monday and none were broken, according to the University Police Det. Commander Tom King. The assailant fled after the alarm went off, according to Elizabeth King, and the victim remained in the stall, but left it once it was clear that no one was coming to respond to the alarm. She then made her way to a street where she found a man walking and asked him for help, according to the Wellesley student. This man -- who Elizabeth King said the victim is calling her savior -- walked the victim to the first open building they came to, where they found help. Elizabeth King says police were then called to the scene and they questioned the victim for "a couple of minutes." Police then brought the victim to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where, Elizabeth King said, "she was treated for her wounds, but [no one did anything] to collect physical evidence. They just recorded the lengths of the knife wounds." University Police, who are investigating the incident, said yesterday afternoon that they have physical evidence of the crime. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writers Ben Geldon and Binyamin Appelbaum contributed to this article.