October 1, 2007—The victim of a September 9 bias-related assault identified Philip Cooney (MSB ‘10) as one of his attackers on two separate instances, Lt. Alberto Jova, the commanding officer of the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit for the Metropolitan Police Department said on Monday.
The victim, a Georgetown student whose identity has not been released, notified MPD after identifying Cooney on Facebook. He later picked Cooney’s picture from an MPD photo spread of nine Georgetown students. The University provided MPD with the photos used in the spread.
Jova said that such double verification is “a very strong investigatory [method]” and that the independent identifications, along with the victim’s injuries, constituted probable cause to arrest Cooney.
Danny Onorato, Cooney’s attorney, said that an arrest made “three weeks after the fact” based on identification though Facebook and without an independent police investigation did not establish his client’s guilt.
“Philip Cooney did not commit any crime and we’re going to do anything to prove it,” Onorato said. “He’s a good young man, he’s a good student and his character is impeccable.”
Though Jova never had a suspect recognized through Facebook before, he supports Facebook’s legitimacy as a means of identification.
“It’s just an extra tool that was used, in this case effectively,” he said.
The assault took place on the 1400 block of 36 St. NW at 2:30 a.m. and is being investigated as a bias-related crime regarding sexual orientation.
Cooney was arrested last Thursday and pled not guilty to simple assault with hate-related bias in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. If convicted of simple assault, he will face a sentence of up to 180 days and up to 270 days if the assault is determined to be bias-related. Cooney has a status hearing scheduled for October 12.
Though many students heard about the crime through media outlets on Thursday night, the Georgetown community was officially notified last Friday via e-mail by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson.
University spokesperson Julie Green Bataille said Georgetown has been aware of the crime since September 9.
“This was a contained incident,” she said when asked why information was not released earlier. “There was no reason to believe that there was any kind of ongoing threat to members of the University community.”
GU Pride held a rally in response to the incident in Red Square on Monday afternoon to pressure the University to improve their response to bias-related crimes. As of Monday night, they had gathered 753 signatures for a petition demanding increased support for the LGBTQ community on campus.
“Even people at [The Georgetown] Solidarity [Committee] said that it was one of the biggest rallies at Georgetown,” Olivia Chitayat (COL ‘10), a GU Pride co-president, said.
“The administration seemed pretty willing to work with us now especially seeing the people we mobilized … and the number of signatures we got,” the other GU Pride co-president Scott Chessare (COL’10) said.
Of the 27 bias-related crimes reported in D.C. so far in 2007, 21 were motivated by sexual orientation, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. There has not been a pattern of bias-related crimes around Georgetown, Jova said, calling the September 9 assault “fairly random.”
15 bias-related incidents were reported to the University in the spring and summer of 2006, according to Student Affairs. Of these, 10 were related to the victim’s sexual orientation.
Additional reporting by Crystal Chung.
