The Georgetown Hoya reported on an armed sexual assault in LXR Hall over the weekend that has the university community up in arms over lax security measures in the dorm. At 3:40 a.m. on Saturday morning, an assailant described as a black male between 17 and 20 years old allegedly attacked a female student, forcing her off a public balcony and into a common room, where he threatened her with a gun and sexually assaulted her.

The university’s Department of Public Safety put together a meeting with LXR residents and has since been scrambling to make safety improvements to the dorm:

Many students at the meeting raised concerns about a lax policy of checking GOCards [the school’s ID card system], as well as a broken GOCard machine in the LXR lobby and three doors to the courtyard that do not lock properly. In response to multiple reports of guards falling asleep during the night, DelMonaco said this is “simply and utterly unacceptable” and said that the GOCard swiping machine would be “fixed by Monday.”

As of yesterday, the GOCard machine was replaced and at least one of the doors was fixed.

Scary stuff for students at the school, and especially those living in the dorm. Also scary: some of the incredibly racist comments left on the Hoya story. Hats off to the Hoya’s seemingly robust online community for doing their best to regulate the hate in that thread during a tense time.