On 10/27/2019 all Rowan Students received an email titled “Simple Assault Evergreen Hall” the names are changed to protect the identities of this matter but this is the story from the perspective of the person who got assaulted. The image above is the location where the assault took place. 

It was a normal day at Rowan for my friend Tiffany until she was approached by three men. These three men were obviously intoxicated, she observed one of them had a mostly finished bottle of E&J. Tiffany was trying to walk home back to her friends but these three men were being very flirtatious with her, to the point of harassment. She felt that the situation started to get threatening so Tiffany began to rush towards her dorm where she had the comfort of her bed and stuffed animals. Tiffany started to panic when the men started to follow her back to her dorm and she did not know exactly what their motives were. Minutes started to feel like hours as Tiffany quickly rushes towards her home. The three men are still following Tiffany as she finally reaches her dorm but when she attempts to close the door she is stopped by one of the men trying to barge into her apartment. Tiffany panics and fights for her life with the door as the men try to reach their prey. She finally manages to slam the door shut and feels a sudden sense of relief and protection inside of her dorm. When Tiffany realizes the men are gone she rushes upstairs to tell her boyfriend Thomas about the encounter. 

I am having a good time relaxing and cracking jokes with Thomas and other friends when Tiffany barges through the door sweaty and more pale than usual. She takes Thomas and they begin to argue, completely oblivious to the situation, I believe it’s just couple’s arguing. Then suddenly Thomas storms out of the room and I go after him. I meet him in this stairwell but we are not alone. The tension in the air is so strong that the walls start to cave in. Through my tunnel vision I see three men arguing with Thomas. They are all yelling to come downstairs, one guy takes his shirt off and they are all giving this threatening glare to each of us that makes me aware of the situation, it’s time to man up. Thomas goes downstairs, I follow along with my roommate Jason, Thomas’s roommate Micheal, Tiffany and her friend Tisha. 

We are all downstairs, it’s dark. The only thing that is clear about this situation is that I need to defend my friends. The three men are standing together in unison, one to the left, one person to the middle, and one to the right. My group is standing as a reflection of their position, with Thomas facing the man to the left, his roommate Micheal in the middle, and I am standing to the right facing the other guy. He has a white tank top, black Nike sweatpants with orange shorts underneath, white Jordan shoes, he’s a bit more muscular than me, and a bit taller than me. He asks me with base in his voice, “Why the fuck you come downstairs all aggresively?!” I looked straight into his eyes and answered unbothered, “I wanted to see if my mans alright.” In these types of situations you cannot show any fear, you have to stand your ground and be about what you say. He sizes up my roommate and shouts, “What the fuck are you gonna do?!” I forget exactly what Jason says because I’m still focused on the person in front of me. He directs his attention back to me and says something small that I cannot recall then punches me right in my face which dazes me for half a second.

 I quickly go towards him, put my guards up and get ready to fight then quickly my roommate grabs me and holds me back. I’m at 1000% at this point and am shouting, trying to break free and fight him when the man reaches towards his pocket and pulls out a knife. The situation quickly garners attention from resident assistants and people that live at Evergreen, everybody is coming outside so their group quickly leaves the situation. We were not too far from the building so everything was caught on video and the police reassured me that I could not get in trouble because I was assaulted first. At the moment I was furious that my roommate stopped me instead of having my back but in reality it was God pulling me back telling me that it was not my battle that night.