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ELPD responds to sexual assault, arson

August 30, 2017
<p>The East Lansing Police Department is pictured on July 6, 2017.</p>

The East Lansing Police Department is pictured on July 6, 2017.

Photo by Jon Famurewa | The State News

The East Lansing Police Department responded to a criminal sexual assault and arson last week.

On Aug. 25, a third degree criminal sexual assault was reported.

“It came in as a late report, the report came in after the fact,” ELPD Lt. Steve Gonzalez said. “It wasn’t an ongoing incident that we responded to like a 911 call.”

The alleged incident occurred at Campus Village, 1151 Michigan Ave., according to the ELPD Weekly Report.

The case has been assigned to the ELPD detective bureau and no arrests have been made, Gonzalez said.

“Looking at it, there does not appear to be a community safety issue at this point in time,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not a situation where an individual was assaulted while walking down the street or anything like that.”

One case of arson was reported to ELPD on Aug. 24.

The victim parked his car and left it alone for a few hours on the 700 block of E. Grand River Ave., Gonzalez said. When he returned to his car it had been broken into, and an attempted fire had been set, Gonzalez said.

“There was a gas can that was in the car and the suspects had tried to light that gas can, which then in turn would have lit the entire car on fire,” Gonzalez said. “However when they lit the gas can, they closed the door to the car which eventually, due to a lack of oxygen, the fire smothered itself.”

The car did sustain significant interior damage, but the whole car did not catch fire, Gonzalez said.

“That one is also under investigation,” Gonzalez said. “It looks like as far as that complaint is concerned, it wasn’t a targeted incident, but the detectives are still trying to nail down exactly what happened, how it happened and then obviously, of course, trying to identify some suspects.”

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