Neighbors react to student's rape in Center City

The victim of Friday's attack is receiving help from University officials. While Penn students living in Center City reflect on the serious assault that has hit close to their homes, University officials are working with the victim of Friday's early morning sexual assault to help her deal with resulting emotional trauma. Officials from the Division of Public Safety's Special Services unit are assisting the 20-year-old junior in dealing with what police say was a random assault by a stranger. As of last night, a judge had not yet ruled on whether 34-year-old Marvin Johnson, who police arrested Sunday night for rape and related offenses after a 2 1/2-day investigation, would be allowed out on bail until his trial. Police said Johnson entered the victim's apartment on the 2000 block of Walnut Street at about 4:40 a.m. through an unlocked window and threatened the victim with an unseen weapon during the approximately 15-minute assault. Although the student did not sustain any major physical injuries besides the rape itself, Director of Special Services Susan Hawkins -- who would not comment about Friday's incident in particular -- said that rape victims can suffer from serious emotional trauma. "Even where there are not serious physical injuries, the emotional wounding from an assault can be quite serious," Hawkins said. She added that sexual assaults or similar incidents "completely take away the victim's sense of control over her body and her fate." University Police Chief Maureen Rush said that Penn officials, including Hawkins, are in daily contact with the victim and will "obviously be there at her side." Hawkins explained that the key step in helping rape victims is to "assist the individual in reasserting some control over her body and her life as soon as possible." Despite Friday's rape -- the fourth attack in 20 months in the Rittenhouse Square area, including the still-unsolved May 1998 murder of Wharton doctoral student Shannon Schieber -- many students living near the victim's apartment said that their concerns about safety have not increased. Second-year medical student Anna Grosz, who lives only a few blocks away from the victim's apartment, said she feels "quite safe" living in Center City because her apartment is within the Penn shuttle boundaries and there are always people on the street by her building. "I think I'm OK. You really can't spend your time worrying about these things," Grosz said. Andrew Fiala, a first-year Wharton graduate student, agreed with the assessment. "My perception [of safety in the area] hasn't changed. I still feel safe in Center City," said Fiala, who lives on the block where Friday's attack occurred. "I think what happened was partly a risk of living in any urban area." However, a female graduate student who lives a block away from where the incident occurred said that she does not feel safe living in Center City, particularly after Friday's rape. "You're not safe [in Center City] even walking around in the daytime," said the student, who asked to remain anonymous. "It's a high concentration of wealth and it's very easy to prey upon students," she noted, adding that since she moved into her apartment last August, she has seen only two police officers patrolling the area. Although the student said she realized that sexual assaults were uncommon in Center City, she said she was upset "by the fact that it can happen at all."