Lawrence police release incident report of alleged sex assault at KU frat house
Lawrence police have opened an investigation following a reported sex crime inside the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house near the University of Kansas, though information from authorities continues to be tightly held.
An incident report shared with The Star through a Kansas public records request offers little information outside of confirming that police began looking into the matter earlier this month. The department has previously acknowledged police were aware of the reported incident as students and others from the Lawrence community have staged demonstrations outside the fraternity house and on the college campus.
Incident reports are part of an investigative file detailing the actions of officers responding to a reported crime. In Kansas, police narratives are withheld in open criminal investigations. The incident report provided to The Star contains no details about possible offenses committed, the applicable state laws or the circumstances of the event. It shows only that the report was first made by phone at the fraternity house’s address shortly after 1 a.m. on Sept. 12.
In an email to The Star, Kim Murphree, a Lawrence police records manager, said information from the incident report was limited because of “the nature of the investigation.” Under state law, a police agency may withhold criminal investigation records or other public records of a personal nature that “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Accusations that a fraternity member drugged and raped another student first caught fire on social media and quickly spread last week. Hundreds of people have protested in response and some are calling for the fraternity to be banned from receiving university resources or recognition.
University of Kansas administrators announced an investigation last week. The fraternity has promised through its national leadership to cooperate with authorities and the university.
Meanwhile, two separate sexual assault incidents have been reported on or near the university in recent weeks.
One is a sexual battery case being investigated by Lawrence police after a woman was followed for nearly a mile and attacked by a man who tried to touch her inappropriately. And on Thursday, a 19-year-old was arrested on suspicion of raping a student inside of a dorm room.
The Star’s Robert A. Cronkleton and Katie Moore contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 5:46 PM.
