UC Santa Barbara gang rape: Search and rescue team aids investigation
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s volunteer search and rescue team helped canvas neighborhoods around UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday to help find information after a female student was gang raped.
“We’re looking at all potential areas in the immediate vicinity,” said department spokeswoman Kelly Hoover.
Isla Vista, the unincorporated community next to UCSB where the gang rape occurred, is slightly larger than half a square mile but has some 23,000 residents.
“It’s very dense,” Hoover said. “Search and rescue is a resource available to us and we want to utilize it in this case.”
The search is the latest response by authorities to Sunday’s brutal attack. Deputies stepped up patrols after a 19-year-old UC Santa Barbara student reported being beaten and raped by three men sometime between 12:30 a.m. and 4 a.m.
She managed to make it back to her apartment afterward and report the rape.
No arrests have been made. A Santa Barbara City College student also reported being raped by a man Saturday night, and a woman was gang raped by three people in Isla Vista in January.
Authorities arrested two men and a male juvenile in connection with the January incident.
Twitter: @josephserna
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