Investigation reveals ‘system-wide failures’ after campus attack
By: SPENCER GLEASON
Editor-in-Chief
The St. Louis Community College Board of Directors held a press conference at 3 p.m. on Thursday, August 15, explaining the most recent information about the April 18 incident, in which STLCC-Meramec student Blythe Grupe was attacked by fellow student Jevon Mallory in a women’s bathroom at the Meramec campus.
The press conference came following the public release of an investigative report of the incident done by the local law firm Armstrong Teasdale L.L.P., at the request of the STLCC Board of Trustees.
Since the release of this report earlier Thursday, Meramec Campus Police Chief Paul Banta, STLCC District Chief of Police Robert Stewart and Vice President of Student Affairs at Meramec Linden Crawford have been removed from their positions. At press time, administration had not yet distributed a campus or district-wide notification regarding the personnel changes. Meramec President George Wasson resigned from office on April 26.
The 18-page report goes through in timeline-form detail the “mischaracterization and mishandling by STLCC of [the incident],” according to the report.
Although Mallory admitted he was attempting to “withdraw her from life,” campus officials allowed Mallory’s release only a few hours later after the incident, did not notify the campus faculty or student body of the threat and only went public with the attack once Grupe went to the media.
The report states that STLCC mishandled the situation “due to a system-wide failure of campus and district law-enforcement, administration and communication.”
The full investigation report can be accessed at: http://www.stlcc.edu/Document_Library/CC/investigation-report.pdf
The Montage will continue to update this story as more details are available.
