The News Record 10.6.14

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THE NEWS RECORD

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

NEWSRECORD.ORG

MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2014

UC football official requests appeal of his termination Antrione Archer was mentor for Bearcat football players; fired after alleged sexual assault in Kroger KATIE COBURN | NEWS EDITOR

PROVIDED

Archer, hired in the summer of 2011, was a liason for players.

Police make arrest in case of missing university professor

A University of Cincinnati football official is scheduled to appear in a pretrial conference Monday at the Kentucky Court of Justice for a charge of sexual abuse in the third degree — an incident that has attracted national attention, including features in ESPN and USA TODAY. Antrione Archer, former director of player welfare and development for UC Bearcats football team, was terminated Sept. 30 after the university was informed of his arrest June 10 in Kenton County, Kentucky. Archer was arrested at 3:26 p.m. June 14 following his confession June 10 to Fort Mitchell police. Archer admitted to exposing his penis multiple times and at several locations inside the Fort Mitchell Kroger store May 27, according to Fort Mitchell Detective Ron Wietholter, lead investigator on the case. Archer was released at 3:57 p.m. later that day after posting a $2,500 cash bond, according to Kenton County Detention Center. Greg Vehr, vice president of university communications, said that a Fort Mitchell detective

contacted the UC police department Sept. 26 regarding Archer’s arrest. Up until then, the university had no prior knowledge of Archer’s legal situation, Vehr said. UCPD contacted Vehr who then contacted Ryan Hays, the vice provost for faculty development and deputy to the provost. Hays contacted the athletics director, Mike Bohn, who talked with UC’s football coach, Tommy Tuberville. Archer — who was in Columbus with the football team preparing for the Bearcat’s game scheduled for Sept. 27 against the Ohio State University — was sent back to Cincinnati and subsequently placed on administrative leave and later fired, Vehr said. “Archer’s ongoing employment was considered by [football officials] not to be in the best interest of the team,”Vehr said. Bohn said in a statement released Sept. 30. that the university is cooperating with authorities. “UC Athletics is fully committed to upholding the highest level of professionalism and conduct for our staff, coaches and student-athletes,” Bohn said. Archer also admitted to rubbing his penis against the buttocks of a 73-year-old female Kroger employee that was helping him locate vitamins, Wietholter said. Classified as a Class B misdemeanor, third degree SEE ARCHER PG 3

NEW CHIEF BROADENS FOCUS TO COMMUNITY SAFETY

UC HIRES POLICE CHIEF NATALIE COLEMAN | NEWS EDITOR

NATALIE COLEMAN | NEWS EDITOR

An arrest has been made in connection to the case of a missing University of Cincinnati professor. Randal Russ, a parttime computer sciences professor at UC, went missing along with his vehicle, and was last seen Aug. 19. The Kentucky State Police, who are leading the investigation into Russ’ disappearance, arrested Charles Black, 50, Thursday, nearly two months after Russ was last seen. According to the arrest report, Black admitted to helping bury, and burn, Russ’ body. Black told KSP that he worked to bury the body with another man, 37-yearold Kevin L. Howard, who has not yet been taken into custody. Black said they stole Russ’ car and used it to take his body to an area near Ringo Grange City Road in Hillsboro, Kentucky, where they dug a shallow grave for the body and burned the remains, according to the arrest report. Black led police to the remains, but they have not been able to identify the body. Black also admitted to burning a mattress from Russ’ residence and using Russ’ ATM card to withdraw $200. Black was charged with murder, automobile theft and two counts of tampering with physical evidence. Kentucky police are looking for Howard and are requesting anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts to contact KSP at Morehead by calling 606-784-4127.

Women-to-Women eases transition between campuses CHRISTINA DROBNEY | CONTRIBUTOR

University of Cincinnati Clermont College launched “Women-to-Women: Leadership and Mentoring” this past spring semester after receiving a grant from the American Association of University Women to establish the program on campus. “[The American Association of University Women] wanted us to respond to the needs of women students found in a recent study they carried out, such as the need for information, encouragement, support, and sense of community to help women students set academic goals and work toward further SEE WOMEN PG 3

After almost 15 months of searching, the University of Cincinnati announced Thursday that it hired Jason Goodrich as the university’s new chief of police and director of public safety. UCPD has been functioning without a permanent police chief since July 2013 when Mike Cureton resigned amid controversy and numerous complaints against him alleging contract violations. The university conducted a highly selective, national search to find someone with a background in tackling off and on-campus crime, as well as focusing on improving the ways universities handle sexual assault. “I challenged the university’s search committee to find someone with a strong criminal justice and campus-policing background who values community input and can continue the positive momentum we are experiencing to overcome the safety challenges facing not only our campus, but urban campuses across the country,” said Robert Ambach, senior vice president of administration and finance for UC. Goodrich — who will join the University of Cincinnati Police Department on Nov. 3 — worked as chief of police for Lamar University in Texas, where he supervised daily operations like parking services, emergency operations and compliance with the Clery Act. He was also a captain for the Vanderbilt University Police Department in Tennessee from 2007 to 2011. At VU, Goodrich managed special units including K9 units, traffic, victim services, criminal investigations and field training.He received an award from the Vanderbilt women’s center for his work teaching about bystander intervention, which encourages those who witness abuse and assault to step in. He also co-chaired a bystander intervention committee. “I was very fortunate to be chosen that year because of the work we did for those issues,” Goodrich said. “We worked to raise awareness in that if you see domestic violence or if you know about sexual assault, there are things you can do to engage to help lower the chances of people experiencing that. You don’t just have to stand by. There are strategies you can use to intervene if you see these situations unfolding.” Many college campuses are struggling with the way they handle allegations of sexual assault, such as Columbia University in NY where a female student

PROVIDED

Jason Goodrich, newly hired chief of UCPD, wants police to look at the on and off campus community as a whole when focusing on safety.

has carried the mattress on which she was allegedly raped to all of her classes in an effort to make a statement on the inability of her university to punish her alleged rapist. Goodrich said he hopes to improve UC’s processes in helping victims report assault. “As a police chief, one of the first things I want to make sure of is that we have the best investigators to handle if a student wants to go to the police and make a report that they’re properly informed, that their process is victimcentered, that we do not victim-blame and that they have the best training and ability to conduct those investigations in the best most professional manner possible,” Goodrich said. Goodrich said he focuses his efforts on protecting students who live off campus at Lamar University, something he plans to translate directly to the students at UC. “Historically, campus law enforcement is hung up on boundaries — this is on campus, this is off campus. Really,

we’ve got to change that conversation,” Goodrich said. “I don’t want to talk about campus safety, I want to talk about community safety. Geography shouldn’t be the main consideration. We need to go out into the community and help our students where they’re at.” Though the crime rate on and around UC’s campus has dropped steadily —a whopping 42.9 percent decrease in homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts and forcible rapes in the first eight months of 2014 — students still worry about their safety on the streets off-campus. “The fear-of-crime issue, that’s where we have to get the community engaged,” Goodrich said. “When we talk about community safety instead of campus safety, that helps us. It’s not just the police department’s job. We have to get everybody involved. We want everybody to be eyes and ears. We want them to utilize all of the resources available.” Goodrich believes that if the UCPD has a higher visibility to students, the fear of crime will decrease. “Just being out and being visible as much as possible, that encourages the community to feel safe and it displaces crime because the bad guys don’t want to go where the cops are,” Goodrich said. “You get this dual effect when you attack both actual crime and then you couple that with the high visibility approach, then you usually see your crime rates go down and then continue to go down, and that’s where we’re going to start.” Goodrich believes UC is headed in the right direction to combat crime, with the implementation of NightRide and new safety applications. “I think everything that’s in place that I’ve heard about I’m impressed with,” Goodrich said. “The LiveSafe [app] I’m a huge fan of. I’m excited that you guys have that product. We want to make it as effective as possible because it’s a really great tool when used effectively.” University officials weighed in on the importance of the UC community maintaining a stable police chief. “The role of the director of public safety and chief of police is a central one in continuing our successful efforts to enhance the safety of our campus community,” UC President Santa Ono said in a prepared statement. “The new chief will be expected to continue to work with the President’s Campus Safety Committee to continue our strategic initiatives and make safety the highest priority.”

Greek life raises money for Freestore Foodbank with watermelons COULTER LOEB | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Members of the University of Cincinnati’s Greek life assembled on McMicken Commons Sunday and smothered each other with over 150 watermelons during Lambda Chi Alpha’s 2014 Watermelon Bash. Organizers raised $1,500, perfectly reaching their philanthropic goal which will enable the Freestore Foodbank to provide 4,500 meals to needy Cincinnatians. The chilly air did not deter sorority and fraternity members from competing in events. “It’s really freezing cold, but it’s for a good cause, and there are random watermelons everywhere,” said Jamie Tullis, a first-year exploratory studies student, as she wrung out her shirt soaked in watermelon juice. “Its a little odd to destroy food when you’re trying to raise money to give people food, but for whatever reason it’s always just been a Lambda Chi Alpha tradition,” said Tommy Rybert, event organizer, fourthyear physical therapy student and member of Lambda Chi Alpha. “It’s a fun event that

brings us together as a community, plus it raises awareness for the cause.” This was the second time Lambda Chi Alpha has hosted the event at UC, but not for a number of years. “We basically just restarted it and were able to get eight teams to sign up,” Rybert said. Each team was made up of a number of fraternity and sorority members, including Chi Omega, Phi Sigma Rho, Theta Phi Alpha, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta. “Its pretty much just Greek life here. We considered opening it up to outside groups but we got on it too late”, said Jack Liska, president of the UC chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha. “We like holding events, and if we can benefit some local or national cause then everyone is even more for it. It’s just for the love of philanthropy.” The Freestore Foodbank, a partner of the Feeding America network, has been working to feed the less-fortunate across 20 counties in the Tri-State area. The organization can be found just down the hill from UC at 1141 Central Parkway.

COULTER LOEB | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students from fraternities and sororities at UC gobbled watermelon in the name of philanthropy.

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