UF parents showed concern online after two posts appeared on Facebook recounting separate incidents this past weekend involving a man following female students near their off-campus apartments.
The first incident happened shortly after midnight on Friday.
A female UF student was walking alone near the Ufora apartment complex when a man with long brown hair, wearing all black, flipped up her skirt and then grabbed her, according to the report provided to Gainesville police after the incident.
The anonymous Facebook post, made by the girl’s mother on a private page for UF parents and families, said the girl punched the man, causing him to flee.
According to Gainesville police spokesman Art Forgey, the girl did not want to file an official report.
A second incident happened around 10:30 p.m. Saturday following the home Florida football game against the University of South Florida as a UF student was driving back to his apartment with his parents and siblings.
Stephanie Walter Carraway, the mother of a UF senior, said her car was about to turn onto Southwest Ninth Street near Sorority Row, where her son lived, when she saw a tall, thin man with short hair dressed in a white T-shirt following a girl.
She said the girl was walking alone and looked very intoxicated.
“My mom radar senses were going off about this guy,” she later told The Alligator. “I said to my husband and son, ‘Watch him.’”
When the girl turned the corner to enter the Oxford Terrace apartment complex with the man close behind, Carraway’s husband and son set off after them.
The pair was able to reach the elevator before it closed with the man and the girl inside. Carraway said her husband asked the man what floor he wanted, causing him to panic and take off.
Carraway warned parents and students not to walk alone at night in her Facebook post recounting the incident.
The two incidents, both of which were posted to the Facebook Group for University of Florida parents, have sparked concerns about lack of police presence and bad lighting in the area behind Norman Hall and beside Sorority Row.
Carraway’s post has garnered over 1,700 reactions and 390 comments from parents thanking her and her husband for stepping in to help and reminding other young female students to remain “vigilant.”
Due to differences in the two descriptions of the man, it is unclear if the two incidents are related, and law enforcement has not made a connection.
Contact Alexa Ryan at aryan@alligator.org Follow her on X @AlexaRyan_
Alexa is a second-year journalism and international studies students serving as the Fall 2025 Criminal Justice beat reporter. She previously served as a copy editor. She spends her free time running, traveling, having movie nights and going on random side quests with friends.
