Peeping Toms prowl UNLV

Eric Leake

Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 | 8:48 a.m.

UNLV police are warning students about two unwelcome men on campus -- one who allegedly groped women and the other who has been peering into stalls in women's restrooms.

Last week police issued a warning that was sent campuswide via e-mail and was also posted on some buildings.

One man has reportedly at least twice entered a women's restroom and peered over dividers into occupied stalls. Once he tried to enter an occupied stall, according to the warning.

Another man has been hanging around the residence halls, propping open doors, and on three times reportedly "improperly touched" female students, the warning states.

There was a feeling of unease among female UNLV students Sunday evening.

Lea Estefanos, 19, spent Sunday evening studying in the busy Lied Library, where on Feb. 7 a man was reportedly in the women's restroom.

Estefanos said after she heard about the incident she had nightmares about it.

"For a girl it's terrifying to just look up and see a guy there," Estefanos said.

She and other students said they feel relatively safe on campus except at night and when walking in lonely places.

"Now I feel like I have to go to the bathroom with someone," Estefanos said.

She said she heard about the warning from a friend who received a campuswide e-mail. Notices were also posted on a few buildings.

According to the campus police crime log, the man also reportedly peered into an occupied women's stall in the Bigelow Health Sciences Building about 5 p.m. on Feb. 11.

That news was unsettling to Perla Melendez, 19, a nursing major who first heard of the warning Sunday evening.

"It's kind of creepy, but it's hard to monitor everyone. There are so many people and the place is so big," Melendez said.

"It could happen anywhere," she added. "Everybody's got to look out for themselves."

For Teana Hemmans, 19, the troubling part was that the men were in the buildings where she studies and the dorms where she lives.

"It's so close. He's been in the residence hall. I walk through there every day," Hemmans said.

Neither of the men are believed to be students. The one entering restrooms was described as a white man with dirty blond hair. He wore green tennis shoes and looked like a homeless person, a witness told police.

The man around the dorms is said to weigh 200 pounds, a black man, having a mustache and a goatee, brown eyes, and black hair in cornrows.