The University of Richmond Police Department received a call 11:30 p.m. Monday from the Virginia Beach Police Department warning that a man had forced a woman to drive him to Richmond, said Beth Simonds, assistant URPD police chief.
After coordinating with City of Richmond and Henrico police, university police were able to locate and stop the woman and her vehicle on campus. The woman, who was in no way affiliated with the university, told them she had driven the man willingly and dropped him off on campus, Simonds said.
“The person that she gave a ride was no longer with her, but she was adamant that she was not forced,” Simonds said. “The original call,” reported to VBPD, “came from a third party and was basically inaccurate.
“This wasn’t an abduction or anything. Basically, she just gave someone a ride,” Simonds said.
Eighteen minutes after VBPD contacted URPD, a Westhampton College student alerted campus police that a man whom she described as suspicious had been in a laundry room in the 500 block of the University Forest Apartments. The man asked the student for a cigarette, and she felt nervous about being in the laundry room alone with him, Simonds said.
“I thought it was strange that a guy was hanging out in there when I didn’t hear any machines on,” the student who called the police wrote in an email. “He appeared to be much older than a Richmond student, probably mid- to late-twenties."
“He gave me a weird/uncomfortable vibe so I decided to call the campus police to let them know,” she wrote.
Simonds said based on the initial police investigation, there was no evidence that suggested the two reports were connected. The description that the student offered of the man in the laundry room and the description of the man reported by VBPD did not align.
“I could see where people might be concerned about there being a connection but we haven’t found anything that connects them,” Simonds said. “We’re treating them as two separate incidents that just happened to occur on the same night.”
URPD never located the man reported to have been in the laundry room or the man who was dropped off on campus. Searches for both of the men have ended, Simonds said.
“We were looking for two people, but neither is the subject of any kind of criminal offense,” Simonds said. “We just don’t have any information that either of them did anything wrong. There is no crime here that we’re aware of. It’s an odd situation, but aside what people tell us happened we don’t have any other information.”
The Collegian will update this article as more information becomes available.
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Contact Editor-In-Cheif Clay Helms at clay.helms@richmond.edu
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