Two West Warwick males, ages 16 and 17, were arrested this week for an Oct. 2 Meeting Street assault against three Brown first-years, according to a Department of Public Safety alert.
One of the suspects faces multiple assault charges for allegedly attacking two of the students, according to the DPS crime alert. He is scheduled to appear for arraignment in Family Court on Oct. 19 and is being detained at the Rhode Island Training School.
The other suspect has been charged with assault upon a third Brown student, and he will be petitioned into Family Court, according to the crime alert.
According to the Providence Police Department, the perpetrators of the Oct. 2 assaults, described by the victims as between 8 and 10 black males between the ages of 18-20 and wearing white T-shirts, were searching for a Brown party after leaving another party in Olneyville. The assailants encountered the students at about 2:20 a.m. next to Pembroke Hall, according to a campus-wide e-mail sent by DPS Oct. 2.
Anthony Sabelli '08 reported that the suspects shoved him, searched his pockets, stole his credit cards, money, identification and a cell phone, and then broke his nose. Steve Alerhand '08 and Aaron Mandle '08 also sustained injuries. The assailants fled in a dark vehicle before authorities arrived on the scene.
Mandle was transported to Rhode Island Hospital by Brown EMS and later released, The Herald reported Oct. 4. Other Brown students reported that the perpetrators called them from the stolen cell phone, apparently having searched through the contact list.
According to the victims, the attack was unprovoked. However, the assailants claim the violence was provoked when one of the victims used a derogatory term, according to Sgt. Mary Day of the PPD Youth Service Bureau, adding that this claim has not been verified.
One of the victims reported the fleeing vehicle's license plate, a vanity plate, to the PPD, but there was no match in the database, Day said.
In the course of the investigation, Day said officials looked at other police reports filed the evening of the crime and noticed that PPD Officer Stephen Freschette had reported a routine stop of a vehicle with a vanity plate with slightly different lettering than the suspects' vehicle.
The owner of that car identified the juveniles, who fit the description of the Meeting Street assailants. After PPD obtained a warrant Tuesday morning and notified the suspects' parents, one suspect confessed to the crime that night, and the other confessed on Wednesday morning. Detective Debra Silva-Rocha, also of the Youth Service Bureau, led the investigation, which is still ongoing.
Day said she was pleased with the crime-solving protocol. "Detective Rocha did a great job piecing it together," Day said.
In response to this assault and others like it, PPD has also bolstered its surveillance of the Brown community. "We have more patrol (in the Thayer Street area) now than ever," Day said. "We always had a lot of officers on Thayer, but because of the last couple incidents, we're targeting that area more."
