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Last night, Brown's Department of Public Safety admitted that the number of cheetah attacks reported so far this semester has risen well above what the administration had anticipated.
"We were shocked to see the statistics," said Dean Targan. "To give you a sense of the seriousness, the number normally lingers around 4 or 5 per month. There were 11 reported in February."
The student body seems to understand the gravity of the new statistics, especially since the 11 reported attacks do not tell the full story, as many students who are attacked are reluctant to step forward.
One junior, who wished to remain anonymous, told reporters he was scared to tell people about the assault that claimed his left thumb and spleen because he worried "they will say [he] was asking for it by wearing bloody chunks of meat around [his] neck or hanging out in the cheetah's hunting ground." Even though this student was doing both of these things, he is confident it had nothing to do with the attack.
A Committee on Feline Assaults consisting of DPS officers, mammalian biologists, and administrators has been created to investigate the rise in attacks. So far, however, they have reached no conclusions.
"The cheetah population hasn't increased by an amount that would affect the number of attacks so drastically. There also doesn't appear to be one very fierce cheetah doing all the attacking. We're working hard to figure this out," said DPS officer Robert DeLuca.
Bloodthirsty cheetahs have plagued Brown's campus for a number of years, but the University has been reluctant to act due to staunch vocal support for the cheetahs from numerous student groups including the German Club and the Chattertocks. When asked why he was so bothered by the idea of retaliation against the cheetahs, German Club President Oliver Bowers argued, "A cheetah saved my father from a lion and if it weren't for him I wouldn't be here."
