A female Cerritos College student was assaulted on campus in parking lot C-2 by her ex-boyfriend on Feb. 17.
According to Campus Police Department Chief Richard Bukowiecki, the suspect, Irving Romero, grabbed the victim by her shoulder and neck while trying to force her into his car.
Romero will have charges filed against him, as well as a temporary restraining order, which was active on the day of the incident.
“In the case of a possible immediate threat, we have the ability to call a judge, and a judge will authorize an emergency protective order immediately so that it can then become effective right away pending an actual hearing,” Bukowiecki said.
He also said that there has been an issue with Romero making numerous threats to the victim of a period of time and that it’s included in the charges filed against him.
Crystal Orejel, a Cerritos student planning to enter the Teacher TRAC program next semester with the intention of teaching elementary school students, said, “It’s scary, but I think it depends on the person too.
“If she knew that her boyfriend [threatened her] she should have already contacted authorities.”
Orejel said she did not know that police may establish a temporary restraining order against a suspect before a court case is held.
“It makes me feel safer, knowing that it could just get done and out of the way and you don’t have to wait to know that this person’s still looking after you,” Orejel said.
Child development major Lucy Munoz said that she thinks the option of imposing a temporary restraining order is great.
“I think most people would probably say that that’s a personal choice, but being that it happened here and he could be a danger to other people it takes her and him to know that there are consequences if she decides not to do anything he still has a consequence to face.
“There are some women who keep going back to that kind of man and not press charges and that’s kind of scary because he could do that to anybody if he could do it to somebody he cares about.”
Bukowiecki said that the suspect and the victim met after he had contacted her to return textbooks to her, which then led to the assault. Police later found the suspect on campus and took him into custody.
He also explained the difference between classifications of on-campus assaults to distinguish varying degrees of violence.
“There’s aggravated assaults and then there’s what are known as simple assaults. Aggravated assaults are the kinds that would cause great bodily injury or potentially death. So if I hit you with a baseball bat that would be an aggravated assault. If you and I got in a fist fight that would be a simple assault; we’re going to cause some damage, but chances are you’re not going to necessarily have to go to the hospital.
“We occasionally have simple assaults on campus. It’s very rare that we have an aggravated assault on campus. Most of the fights that we have on campus are like high school fights, or fights or arguments over parking spaces,” Bukowiecki said.
California community colleges with an enrollment between 20,000 and 29,999 reported 96 cases of aggravated assault from 2007 to 2009, with 2009 being the latest reporting year available.
Cerritos College accounted for three of 36 aggravated assaults reported from that pool of 23 California community colleges.
Mt. San Antonio College had the most aggravated assaults on campus with nine cases reported in 2009.
However, statistics for simple assaults were not found on the Cerritos College Campus Police website.
Salvador Enriquez, undecided major, said that he has known a lot of classmates who were concerned about parking lot safety, specifically at night.
“They say that their parking is way too far, that its way too dark and that it seems scary.
“[Cerritos should] have some sort of shuttle that brings people from parking to the campus. That would be perfect.”
