Safety concern prompted SSU campus alert about reported rape in dorm

Sonoma State University campus police Wednesday continued to investigate a reported rape in a dorm room Saturday and no suspect has been detained, college officials said.

A woman told authorities she was raped on the Rohnert Park campus Saturday evening by an acquaintance who may have mixed a drug or chemical into her drink, officials said.

Sonoma State spokesman Paul Gullixson said he didn’t know if campus police have interviewed a suspect in the case. The incident prompted school officials to send out a campus alert two days after receiving the report.

On Wednesday, Gullixson cited the ongoing investigation and the need to maintain the privacy of the victim and the acquaintance involved as reasons for not providing additional information, including whether either person was a student, if either or both lived on campus and where the incident was reported to have occurred.

If campus police find enough evidence to support the woman’s claims, authorities could launch a criminal investigation and ask the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office to file charges, Gullixson said.

It also was not clear as of Wednesday whether the reported rape would result in the college launching a Title IX investigation, he said.

Monday’s campus bulletin was the first time in more than two years the school notified the campus community of a reported rape, officials said. The campus police chief decided to make the notification - called a timely warning - after learning that a controlled substance may have been mixed into the woman’s drink prior to the incident, Gullixson said.

“There’s a lot of rules out there that limit the information in order to protect the victim’s identity as well as the potential suspect,” Gullixson said.

Guidelines for alerting the public about rapes and other crimes, including through the use of timely warnings, are spelled out in the Jeanne Clery Campus Security Act, a federal law that requires colleges and universities to make timely warnings, publish annual information about campus crime and make safety procedures public.

Among the factors SSU Police Chief David Dougherty had to consider before sending out the notification was whether the incident imposed a “serious and continuing threat to students and employees,” and if the notification could help prevent similar crimes, Gullixson said.

Since September 2016, no cases involving rape allegations met that standard until Monday, college officials said. That year, though, the college’s police department reported receiving five reports of rape, four of which happened in an on-campus dormitory, according to a university security report.

In 2017, the number of rape reports doubled to 10, nine of which were reported to have occurred in campus housing, the report said.

Under the Clery Act, Sonoma State has until Oct. 1 to publish crime statistics for 2018.

Gullixson said the rise in rape reports on the campus might be related to improved reporting in recent years, as well as an increased willingness for survivors of sexual assault to come forward in light of the #MeToo movement.

“From that perspective, we are glad that more individuals are coming forward when these assaults occur as this helps us continue to improve our responses to these cases and ensure an environment where students feel their safety and privacy will be protected,” he said.