Features

Welcome Week fraternity party has violent consequences 

A new UC student was struck in the face by a brick thrown by a young man trying to crash a Phi Gamma Delta frat party on Monday. 

Party-goers at the 2395 Piedmont Ave. house said two young men, “uninvited guests” to the party, were confronted on the front porch by two fraternity members when they tried to enter. 

When a fraternity member told the crashers it was a “closed party and they were not welcome,” the young men continued trying to sneak past. The fraternity members escorted the young men from the premises, after which the victim said “words were exchanged” between the crashers and frat members.  

Upon leaving, one of the young men picked up a red brick from the sidewalk and hurled it at the group of people standing on the house’s front porch. 

The victim, an 18-year-old UC student from the San Diego area, told the police that she was standing on the front porch, talking with her boyfriend, when suddenly she was struck in the forehead by a hard object. She fell, bleeding from the forehead. 

The suspect and his friend fled west on Channing Way. 

City and campus police and paramedics responded to the 10:55 p.m. call. The victim was transported to a local hospital, where she was treated for a one-inch laceration, which required stitches, and a chipped tooth. Due to the nature of her injury, she remains at the hospital for further monitoring. 

According to Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, BPD community services bureau supervisor, UC Berkeley party crashing is common, frequently attempted by underage kids seeking alcohol. She also said injuries and violence at Welcome Week parties are common because new students often cannot handle their newfound freedom. 

Elderly woman robbed in rare daylight purse-snatching 

A purse was snatched from a 79-year-old woman in broad daylight on Shattuck Avenue on Monday morning. 

The victim, a Berkeley woman, was walking north on a Shattuck sidewalk past the Berkeley Honda dealership at 10:29 a.m. when a man ran up to her from the left and wrested her handbag away. 

The purse contained $200 cash, a driver’s license, assorted credit cards, keys and a green coin purse. 

Later that morning, a community member residing in the 1600 block of Stuart Street called the Berkeley Police Department to report finding an empty green coin purse with the victim’s name written inside discarded on the street. Police assume the suspect emptied the cash from the coin purse before tossing it aside. 

“This type of crime, midmorning, where a purse is stolen in a commercial area is fairly rare,” said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, police community services bureau supervisor. 

Police reported that both the victim’s and a witness’s descriptions of the suspect were too vague to be useful in identifying the suspect.