Raleigh Police apprehends suspected rapist

The Raleigh Police Department has apprehended a suspect in the rape of an 18-year-old non-student female on Hillsborough Street. At approximately 3:30 a.m. Oct. 17, the unidentified female was walking past the intersection of Hillsborough and Pogue streets when she was confronted by a man whom she didn’t recognize. The man forced the female into the alleyway where he raped her.

The Raleigh Police Department determined Roderic Anthony Smith as a suspect in the case based on the victim’s description. Officers had seen Smith in the general area of crime earlier and located him.

The department’s Special Victim’s Unit investigated the case and developed probable cause that Smith committed the crime. The SVU obtained warrants charging him with second degree forcible rape, second degree focible sex offense and second degree kidnapping. He has been transported to Wake County Jail.

Staying Safe on Campus

Erika Pobee-Mensah, a freshman in English, said the University should be doing more to protect students and the community from potential attacks.

“The University is making it so that I have to park about a mile away from my dorm,” Pobee-Mensah said. “I go out just about everyday and sometimes I don’t get back until really late at night. I’m already freaked out as it is, and now with that girl getting raped, I’m even more scared. I try to get my roommate to walk me back, but we’re not always together.”

Pobee-Mensah also said Campus Police doesn’t have enough vehicles to transport all of the students who need to get back to their dorms and that many paths are unlit and do not have sidewalks.

“I have to walk from Varsity Drive to my dorm and there aren’t any street lights and the sidewalk is only paved part of the way,” she said. “It turns into a dirt path and them back into sidewalk.”

Some students, such as Laura Mense, a junior in international studies, said sometimes people put themselves in situations where they are more likely to be attacked and taken advantage of.

“If people are going to be out on Hillsborough Street by themselves in the middle of the night, they have to be aware that in the city where we live, it’s possible to be attacked,” Mense said. “I’ve walked back to my dorm late at night before but I’ve always gotten a guy to take me because I never felt safe. It’s a common sense thing.”

Mense said she wasn’t sure what the University could do to make things safer because the campus is open.

“Until someone can come up with a novel idea that would completely eliminate the chance of getting raped, you have to be smart and take care of yourself and not put yourself in a situation where that can happen,” she said.

Though she said she doesn’t feel Campus Police can do much more to protect the campus, Pobee-Mensah said officers could be doing more to promote the options the Department of Public Safety offers.

“They need to get out there and tell people what they can do if they don’t feel safe in a situation,” Pobee-Mensah said. “At my old school, they did all kinds of things to get you to learn the number for Public Safety. I only knew it here because I saw it on a car. This is important information that people need to know before they’re in a situation that requires it. It’s not even safe to walk to the library at night, and that’s a pretty well-lit area.”

Budget problems are something else Pobee-Mensah said Public Safety should work on.

“I’ve had to wait an hour on the dot for a car to come pick me up,” she said. “They told me that they were really backed up and only had one car. That’s just really bad planning on their part. I’ve talked to a guy who worked for Public Safety at one point and he said the University feels students shouldn’t be out that late anyway and they shouldn’t require Public Safety to come pick them up. People have jobs so they can pay for school and sometimes they get off late. It’s just a fact of life.”