KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety is investigating after three armed men broke into an apartment complex and sexually assaulted a Western Michigan University student inside their home.
Police said in the early hours of Sunday, Oct. 3, officers responded to a report of a home invasion at an apartment complex on Michigamme Woods Drive.
Officers learned that three armed men had also sexually assaulted the resident.
Police said the suspects stole the victim's car and then crashed it in the area of KL Avenue and 11th Street.
They then took off into the woods near Paddock Apartments.
Police weren't able to track the men down.
While the investigation is ongoing, there are no named suspects at this point.
If you have any information that can help police, you're asked to call the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety at 269-488-8911 or Silent Observer at 269-343-2100.
Some students at Western Michigan University told 13 ON YOUR SIDE Monday that they were shocked they didn't hear about this from university officials.
"This is the first I'm hearing about it," graduate student Gabrielle Gittens says. "It's disheartening."
"They should send us off campus (news) as well to let us know if we should be safe off campus as well," junior Merup Nadeem says.
Each student says it was concerning to hear this incident happened minutes away from campus.
"That's really scary honestly, I do live pretty close to campus, and the thought of that -- it hits home a little bit," Gittens says.
J., community impact lead with the YWCA Kalamazoo, says there are safety tips for students to follow, like locking their doors and watching their surroundings. They also say it's never the victim's fault.
"There's not much survivors can do the prevent something that happens to them," they say. "I'm often conflicted abut asking students, specifically LGBT students or women to have to change their choices to be protected versus the school protecting them, or the apartment protecting them, or the police protecting them."
J. wants survivors out there to know that they are heard and believed. The YWCA Kalamazoo has a 24-hour crisis line and emergency shelter, and the university has an online list of resources for those in need of services.
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