Evergreen fires alarm the campus community

By Katie Bresnahan

Over the weekend several doors in Evergreen Hall were set on fire, causing the building to be evacuated.

“As a resident who lived in one of the rooms that was lit on fire, I felt endangered,” said Bryan Paterson, a sophomore biology major. Paterson lives in just one of the eight apartments that were lit on fire before the Department of Public Safety and the local volunteer fire fighters were notified at 12:19 a.m. Sunday.

Colonel Emil Fioravanti, UMass Dartmouth’s Director of Public Safety explained that the largest concern with these fires was smoke inhalation. “It’s not even so much the fire. It’s the smoke. It’s the confusion. It’s people running, people tripping, people getting hurt responding. If there are people in the building with disabilities [who need] assistance getting out, it’s very, very complicated,” stated Fioravanti.

“If you have a smoke filled building, a lot of things can go bad very, very quickly and that’s what we experienced this past weekend,” said Fioravanti. He explained that the fire department had to go into Evergreen and blow a lot of smoke out of the building.

Fioravanti said that the Department of Public Safety is still looking for the person or people responsible for the fires last weekend. He said that any individuals found responsible for these dangerous acts they will be charged and removed from the school. “It’s not going to be good,” he added. “Fire is not something you want to mess around with. A lot of people are very upset about this.”

I hope the people who tried to set fire are caught soon… We are lucky no one got hurt,” said Paterson.

“The folks at residence halls really need to take heed, if they see or hear anything please pass the information along to us and it’s going to be investigated thoroughly,” explained Fioravanti. Anyone with further information concerning this matter can contact Public Safety at x8107.

Rape victim is remembered 25 years later

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. — You hear cheering as you are raped continuously by four—or was it six?—men in a local bar. You can hear the other men egging them on, telling them to “F*ck that B**ch.” The bartender wipes the counter and ignores the incident. You scream for help, but your voice is drowned out by the small crowd’s yelling. The pool table underneath you is rough and rubbing against your back as the men take turns. You’ve had a drink, but you’re not drunk, and you know, you can feel exactly what is going on.

This is what happened to 21 year old Cheryl Araujo at Big Dan’s, a New Bedford bar, twenty-five years ago.

In March 1983, Araujo’s daughter had just turned three-years-old and a small birthday bash was held. At the end of the long day, after her daughters were tucked in, Araujo went to buy a pack of cigarettes. Finding the local store closed, she walked into a neighborhood tavern instead. She bought a drink and talked to another woman. She watched two men play pool and played a song on the jukebox. She didn’t plan to stay for long.

Soon afterwards, she refused to leave with two men and was grabbed from behind by a third man. He dragged her to a pool table and threw her down on it. He stripped her below the waist and, while some held her down, several men took turns raping her. The other patrons in the bar heard her screaming for help, and many of them cheered and applauded the men. Not one person on the scene attempted to help her. This went on for two hours.

This occurrence garnered national attention. The trial was televised, and it eventually became a landmark in rape cases. Six men were originally charged with rape and four received sentences ranging from nine to twelve years. Two of the other defendants were acquitted on the basis of “reasonable doubt.”

Throughout the trial, thousands of people demonstrated locally in support of the rapists. In the local Portuguese neighborhoods, which were highly “traditional,” the female victim was seen as the guilty party. All throughout the trial, her habits and life, including sexual and private history, were dissected in front of the world, in an attempt to convince the jury that the woman had brought it upon herself somehow, that she had instigated, or that she was promiscuous enough to have sex on a pool table in a bar with four to six men. Protestors stated, “She should have been at home,” and “What else would she expect being out at a bar at that time of night?”

Many protestors viewed the convictions as an attack on the Portuguese community, since many of the men were Portuguese—the victim was as well. Some even framed it as an attack on legal and illegal immigrants nationwide.

It is unfair to say that the Portuguese community as a whole responded in this manner. In reality, older Portuguese families were angry about the protests in support of the rapists and truly shocked by the fact that so many Portuguese women were supporting rapists as well. It created a temporary but clear divide in the community.

In response to the crime, a rape crisis center was established in New Bedford, and for the first time, in part to counteract the Portuguese women who sided with the rapists, the women’s groups throughout the community. The case had a national ripple effect, forcing legislators to look at laws and court procedures in such cases, especially because of the media. A few years later, the movie “The Accused” came out, based on the story of Cheryl Araujo.

Araujo had to move to Florida with her family to escape the stigma and shame forced upon her by the community. She died a few years later in a car accident, but her story is not forgotten, especially amongst other rape victims. For every raped woman who takes the crap and tells her story, endless other women are saved.

To commemorate the life, suffering and death of Cheryl Araujo and to help educate the campus community about this fundamental event, the Women’s Resource Center will show “The Accused” on Tuesday, April 8 and Wednesday, April 9. The first showing will be at the Women’s Resource Center in Pine Dale Hall Suite 7136 at 6 p.m. Pizza and refreshments will be served. The second will be in the CVPA (Group 6), room 153, at 7 p.m.

We will be ending Sexual Assault Awareness Month with a local speaker, who has experience with the case and will be discussing the laws at the time and how they have changed. This talk will be given at the end of the Kick the Silence event on Wednesday, April 30, which will be taken place from 4 to 8 p.m. in the quad.

For more information, contact Kim Sylvia of the Women’s Resource Center at 508-910-4584 or at ksylvia@umassd.edu.

Where are your parking fees going?

By Stephanie Luz

With parking fees reaching the one-year mark, many car owners are wondering where the money is going.

“For what I have seen so far, the additional money for parking hasn’t added to any increase of security or any decrease of brake-ins whatsoever. What is this money really going towards and why?” asked Daniel Frawley, a political science major at UMass Dartmouth.

Colonel Fioravanti explained that parking fees are going towards many projects on campus including lighting, call boxes, cameras, and striping (painting lines on streets). Fioravanti said that the current fees are not enough to support an institution of UMass Dartmouth’s size. He explained that some money will be saved in cash reserves to pay for repaving lots and making road repairs.

Students at UMD are concerned about the parking plan. Ashley Dobson said,“The parking plan is a well thought out idea, but I have found in numerous incidents that there is no parking where I have paid for parking and spaces have been taken by people who have not paid for parking.  I also wish that they would put up more call boxes with the parking money, because there is not nearly enough on campus.”

Fioravanti noted, “We are preparing to do an engineering study on [surveillance cameras]. We are making final adaptations.” Fioravanti explained that plans for wireless security cameras are being reevaluated. In addition to an engineering consultant, there will also be a consultant for parking. “The name of this consultant will be announced at the end of the week,” said Fioravanti. The consultant will be evaluating the possibility of either adding parking lots or extending existing lots.

Stolen hangtags will no longer be a problem. Fioravanti said, “We are going back to stickers with the barcode. We are hoping that it will avoid a lot of the fraud, and a lot of the missing hangtags that we had before. We are also looking into some high-end tags that have holograms in them… We are very optimistic.” Students and faculty will be able to purchase these stickers online before the next academic year.