Campus Rape Prompts Safety Reminders : Security: Students at meeting are told how to avoid becoming victims. Attacker at Cal State Fullerton remains at large.

The rape at knifepoint of a Cal State Fullerton freshman as she walked alone to her campus dormitory last week sparked a special security meeting for campus residents, police said Tuesday.

“In these times, one needs to be ever vigilant,” university spokesman Jerry Keating said. “Travel together in pairs is the best advice anyone can give, whether you are on campus or anywhere in the community. Otherwise, take preventive measures: Call the campus escort service, or delay going to places where you would put yourself at risk.”

The 18-year-old freshman was walking home from a store near campus when she was accosted about 8:30 p.m. Friday by a man wielding a knife, said William D. Huffman, the university’s assistant chief of police. The attacker pulled her into bushes screening the campus access road from the adjacent Orange Freeway, raped her and fled on a bicycle.

Huffman said authorities are pursuing several leads. The rapist, who is not believed to be a student, was described as about 30 years old; 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and 160 pounds. He was wearing a brown jacket and brown pants.

On Monday, university police distributed flyers throughout dormitories about the incident, and held a public-safety seminar the same evening. It was attended by more than 200 of the 396 residents in campus housing, Huffman said.

“We told them how to avoid becoming victims, what to do and what not to do,” he said.

Huffman said he hopes the Daily Titan newspaper will help get the word out to the larger campus community of more than 25,000 students.

The attack occurred on an access road leading from a student parking lot and the university’s arboretum. The road, which borders the east end of campus, is fairly well lighted, but few cars would have been traveling by on a normal Friday night, and even fewer last Friday because the spring semester did not begin until Monday, university officials said.

It was the second sexual attack on a student at an Orange County college campus last week. At Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa Thursday evening, a young man on a mountain bicycle approached a 19-year-old woman walking alone in a campus parking lot. As he passed, the attacker grabbed the woman’s breasts, then rode off. He has not been arrested, Orange Coast officials said Tuesday.

Huffman said he doubts that incident is related to the attack on the Cal State Fullerton woman, which is the first rape or sexual assault involving strangers at the university in the last few years.

“This campus is still a relatively safe place to be,” he said. “But during times like these . . . don’t be caught by yourself in lonely areas. . . . There’s safety in numbers.”