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Somebody riding around Harvard Square on a bike punching men

The Harvard Crimson reports four people - three of them male Harvard grad students - have been punched over the past week by a guy on a bicycle.

Cambridge Police are investigating the attacks, including the question of whether there's just one bike-riding puncher or more. None of the victims knew the attacker; in three of the four cases, he simply rode up to them and punched them. Harvard Police have reminded students that they go to school in "an urban setting" and so need to watch out for the sort of "crime and safety issues" cities are prone to.

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Comments

I'm guessing he assumed they are our future politicians, so he's doing what any reasonable person would wish. At least he's going green!

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You are supporting random violence with your statement.

Seek help.

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It definitely was a joke. I'm a woman, ya know...the gender violence is typically thrusted upon, and I laughed. Lighten up Francis. COVID'S claiming many as victims, don't let your sense of humor be the next.

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Humor is dead. The political is now religion. I can't even make a funny. Oh, so sorry all 65 of you believe I'm actually supporting violence. Get a life. Enjoy something. And fuck off.

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Cause you are trying to row that one back big time.

If you were trying humor, it wasn't funny. Try harder next time.

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I've read you enough on this site to know that you are exactly one of the people I'm describing.

"You're nearly a laugh but you're really a cry."
-R. Waters

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You are an idiot. Future politicians are undergrads at Harvard.

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Many future pols are at the law school, other destructive types at b-school.

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The new chaplain is a humanist and and atheist.

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Punching men, hallelujah
I’m punching men, amen
I’m punching men, hallelujah
Oh oh oh oh
I’m punching men
Tall, blonde, dark and lean
Rough and tough and strong and mean
Hallelujah I’m punching men

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As long as he says "Punch buggy!" it's technically not a crime.

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He needs to say the color and also add "no punchbacks" if he wants to avoid retaliation.

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“Harvard Police have reminded students that they go to school in "an urban setting" and so need to watch out for the sort of "crime and safety issues" cities are prone to.”

Ok, Harvard Police, go back to the serious business of dunking donuts. Silly students, you bring this on yourselves!!

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I do not understand your comment.

Many of these students are not from the city, they live in places that are much less congested. Much less crowded. Why is reminding them of this, especially after months of isolation, a bad thing?

I grew up in a city and my father would always yell at me for wearing headphones when walking down the main streets. I was told not to wander down dimly lit alleys even if they were a block from home.

How do they bring it on themselves? Because they go to Harvard?

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1. Its condescending.
2. They don’t. No. (You’re not getting my sarcasm.)

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How have I lived in cities my whole life without realizing they are "prone to" wandering-people-punchers-on-bikes??

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I got my face punched at NU in the late 90s walking south on Forsyth towards Ruggles for an 8:00am class. I was minding my business and some high school kids were walking to school the opposite direction. As we passed, one just took a swing and landed (albeit fairly gently) on my jaw. Of course the group laughed; I was not physically hurt, but was stunned at what just happened. I had no idea what to do so I kept my head up and kept walking towards Ryder Hall. Heh, I haven’t thought about this in years.

This reminds me about something regarding crime and “urban” campuses. Around the same time as this incident at NU, people had noticed an asymmetry between the assaults, muggings, and occasional stabbing that was reported at NU in the Northeastern News, Herald, etc and what the school reported in their crime statistics. The benefit of being an urban campus is that the school is surrounded by sidewalk and street that is city property. So, as it turns out, if a student leaves one NU building to cross the street to another NU building, but gets attacked on the sidewalk, then that statistic was recorded as crime happening in Fenway/Roxbury, not at Northeastern (even if the attack came from another student!).

They were totally juking the stats in order to tout how “safe” the campus was. Once called out, the NU administration said that they would report crime more accurately going forward, but who knows how much changed.

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passed in 1990, and requires campuses to report crime that happens within the bounds of the campus but on public property as campus crime. So that is probably what happened- they got called out for a Clery Act violation, which comes with fines. The fine for a single violation in 2019 was $57,317. It was probably lower in the 90s, but still painful.

https://clerycenter.org/policy/the-clery-act/

My husband's a career academic and so he's been with several different universities since they've rolled out the emergency text alert systems, and I can confirm, they all pretty consistently text out alerts for incidents on campus, near campus, and in the neighborhoods off campus that are not the university's responsibility but have a high concentration of students (Allston Village would be a good example for Boston.)

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Undercover Nerd

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Undercover nerd is down the river at MIT.

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Went to MIT

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Any description?

These incidents were all over Cambridge: Flagg Street, Kirkland/Sumner, Scott/Beacon, Harvey/Westley. Either the alleged assailant is really good at identifying Harvard grad students, or there probably were more of these assaults but the students were better about reporting them.

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White guy between 20 and 40. On a bike.

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