By Melissa Proulx, Staff Writer
The on-campus assault on Saturday, September 20 of a female student was falsely reported, according to an alert sent out by the UNH Police Department on Wednesday, September 24.
On Monday, the department had sent out an alert at around 9:30 p.m., letting students, faculty, and staff know that the woman had been “grabbed” by an unknown suspect on the path between the Christensen and Hubbard halls.
“…a male in a dark hooded sweatshirt grabbed a female student by the waist, the female broke away and the male grabbed her again,” wrote Dean in the initial alert. “The female yelled for help and when people in the area started coming over the male fled.”
Though the report turned out to be “fabricated”, Executive Director of Safety and UNH Chief of Police Paul Dean expressed his pride in his department’s quick response to the incident that was brought to their attention after two days it supposedly happened.

“I want to commend the work of the police investigative team for bringing this investigation to a quick close and providing peace of mind for our campus community,” said Dean in the Wednesday night alert.
Dean also said that though the campus is safe, false reports create an unnecessary burden for everyone on campus.
“We work hard to create as safe an environment as possible for this community and false reports like this tend to elevate what should be a reasonable and appropriate level of caution to an unnecessary level of fear for our students, their families, and for the faculty, staff and other community members at UNH,” said Dean, in the report.
In a separate, follow up e-mail, Dean said there was “nothing more at this time” to say about the case.