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Police make arrests in 8 backlogged cases from ECSU; 60 cases now cleared

Posted at 5:10 PM, May 24, 2013
and last updated 2013-05-24 17:33:25-04

Elizabeth City, N.C. - Elizabeth City police made progress on the more than 120 reported crimes never investigated by Elizabeth City State University.

NewsChannel 3 has learned city police have now cleared 60 of the 126 cases reported since 2007.

On Monday, NewsChannel 3 questioned the governor about the backlog of reported crimes uncovered by city police.

Gov. Pat McCrory said local officials are working with university officials to take care of the problem.

Today, the ECSU announced that city police made an arrest in eight of the 60 cases they cleared.

The cases were reported sometime since 2007 but never investigated until now.

The university also sent NewsChannel 3 incident reports giving more detail about the arrests.

One of them shows that a 19-year-old man was charged with being in possession of 40 ounces of marijuana on campus.

Another report shows that a 22-year-old man charged with physical assault after fighting.

A third and fourth report show another arrest for physical assault as well as one for aggravated assault.

Also among the seven incident reports was the arrest of Anthony Butler in mid-April.

Butler's arrest is what sparked the controversy into the way the university has handled campus crimes over the years.

That's because an ECSU student told NewsChannel 3 Butler used his position as a residence security officer to sexually assault her and that campus police did nothing when she reported it.

"They don't want bad publicity and I'm just like okay you know stuff is going to happen on campus why are ya'll trying so hard to cover what happens on this campus," said Katherine Lowe.

NewsChannel 3 also questioned Elizabeth City's mayor on Monday.

Mayor Joseph Peel says since the resignation of Police Chief, Sam Beamon, and Chancellor, Willie Gilchrist, students should feel confident that the new leadership will fix what was broken.

But the university could still be on the hook to pay $35,000 for each of the 126 crimes it never reported as required by federal law.

That means taxpayers could end up paying for the mistakes of the university.

"That could be upwards of 3, 4, 500,000 dollars so that's significant for taxpayers because somebody is going to have to pay that back," said Mayor Peel.

Related:

ECSU administrator says parents shouldn’t be worried

Elizabeth City State University names interim chancellor

Governor questioned about ECSU crime investigations

ECSU student says she was sexually assaulted on campus

Officials: 125 crime reports at ECSU may not have been investigated properly

ECSU’s police chief resigns