By Michael Freeman, Managing Editor
On Sept. 4, a noose placed in Students’ Association President Daniel Paul Watkins’ office chair shocked the ACU community. More than three months later, the perpetrator of the incident has yet to be identified.
The ACU Police Department examined all its known leads and scrutinized every piece of information it obtained, but so far the culprit and his or her specific intentions are still a mystery, said Jimmy Ellison, chief of ACU Police Department. “We have conducted an extremely thorough investigation,” Ellison said. “Obviously, we would’ve liked for there to be a positive outcome by identifying the person who did this and determining what their motive was. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do that.”
The department received new information about the incident as late as mid-October; however, all leads proved fruitless.
“This case was a very negative, very unfortunate incident both for Daniel Paul as well as the institution,” Ellison said. “I think both Daniel Paul and the institution deserve to know what happened; that’s why we have investigated it as thoroughly as we have.”
Although there are no breaks in the case, Watkins said he decided not to dwell on the incident, and based on his observations, most of the ACU community has followed suit.
“I didn’t want it to be the focus of the semester. It’s been good to me that my friends and people around haven’t been harping on it all semester,” said Watkins, senior political science major from Fredricksburg, Va. “[The response] has been, ‘This isn’t who we are. Let’s move forward…and not live in the past.'”
Watkins said he appreciated the caring response the student body, alumni and President Dr. Royce Money made. He said he also was grateful for the support he received shortly after the incident. “Two weeks after the noose happened, I broke my leg,” Watkins said. “As far as SA goes, that was a bigger blow than the noose incident.” Watkins broke his right foot, ankle and leg in a flag football accident that sidelined him for almost four weeks. A week later, he had to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).
“It was a really stressful four weeks,” Watkins said.
The Students’ Association continued with its weekly meetings, and Sarah Pulis, senior political science major from Longview and Students’ Association Vice President, presided over the meetings in Watkins’ absence. For Watkins, the semester has been atypical, but for the ACU Police Department, the semester has been similar to those in the past; crime statistics have not yielded any surprises other than the Sept. 3 incident.
“This was an isolated incident,” Ellison said. “We have not had anything like that prior to this incident and thus far we haven’t had anything since then. In trying to find positives to point out, I think that’s a positive. The reason why it was so outrageous and so appalling is because things like that typically don’t happen on our campus.”
Ellison said he still is hopeful new information will surface for the ACU Police Department to investigate.
“Someone out there knows something,” Ellison said. “What we’d like to see happen is for someone who does know something to step forward and bring us that information, and by bringing us that information, conceivably giving us what we need in getting this case closed out for everyone involved.”
