An unidentified woman pepper-sprayed a Kappa Sigma fraternity member and a partygoer while waiting in line to enter a house at 702 S. Donaghey Ave. for a registered Halloween party at 12:30 a.m., Oct. 29.

Senior economics major Omar Bravo estimates he was one of “eight to 10” members to work as security that night.

“I was making sure that everything around the house was OK, and then I get to the portion of the house, where everyone was trying to get in,” he said.

The house was at capacity and UCAPD told security not to let anyone else in, Bravo said.

Bravo said he was checking in with some friends in line about 30 minutes before the party was scheduled to end when he heard something was wrong.

“Suddenly, I hear people call me out, like, ‘Hey, this girl wants to fight this other girl.’

“I was trying to find out a solution so there was not any fight, and the other girl was so scared because she didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

Bravo said he immediately worked to separate the women.

“I take the other girl that does not want to fight anyone. I put her [on] the porch. [On] the porch, there was no one, just brothers,” he said.

He said when he came back to the line, he was still watching the other woman because she was talking about stabbing and fighting people.

“I thought that it was this kind of person, like, a lot of talk and never do anything,” he said.

“Suddenly, I see she was pointing to me,” he said. “She pulled out the pepper spray, and then she pepper-sprayed me.”

He said at first, he didn’t feel it “at all” because it only hit half of his face and a woman in front of him caught most of the pepper spray.

“After that, the cops were not there. I don’t know why they were not there because they [are] supposed to be all the time.

“They do a great job because all night, they were trying to control the amount of people that [were] inside the house. … That was a big concern for them.”

But he said he yelled for Kappa Sigma members to get the cops several times, and they couldn’t find one.

“That was a big problem. We don’t know where they [went],” he said.

He said cops were there for basically the whole party, but “when the situation started to escalate, they were not there. My friends, they were looking inside the cop’s car, looking all around the place.”

“After everyone left, that is when the cops get there,” Bravo said.

He said he tried to follow his attacker to get more information from her, but he started feeling symptoms.

“I couldn’t open my eyes. … It was in my mouth. It was really bad,” he said.

He said the people in the house took care of him and the other victim and brought them water and towels.

Bravo said another member followed the attacker from the Kappa Sigma house until she entered The Edge Apartments at 530 S. Donaghey Ave.

He said the attacker was a Black woman, around 5 feet 2 inches tall, with short curly hair. She was wearing a pink shirt and jean shorts.

He said UCAPD called him a few days after the incident and asked him if he knew his attacker’s name, which he still does not know.

“They said, ‘Well, we’ll keep looking for her,’ or something like that. The case is not closed. I think they will keep it open until they find out, but I don’t know, it gives me an impression that they are not investigating at all,” he said.

Sgt. Michael Hopper, UCAPD’s public information officer, said the house is off-campus property.

“Witnesses were asked if they could identify the suspect. No one could. We would encourage anyone that may have information regarding the identity of the suspect to contact the police department,” he said.

Hopper said officers are assigned to monitor open events per the social events policy, and “are there from start to finish.”

“In this case, an officer was present at the event, but was called away to assist with the dispersal of a large group of individuals that had gathered on campus,” Hopper said, adding that the Conway Police Department also responded.

Bravo said he thought the attacker might be a student; “I think I have seen her once or twice around campus.”

He said the event was “kind of traumatizing” because he never thought about someone using pepper spray to attack people: “I always saw that for defense.”

“It was such a nice day. Everyone was having fun and just because one person could not enjoy it … all the other people have to pay the consequences,” he said.

The effects of the pepper spray lasted a few days, he said.

“If I need to read something I have to wear my glasses. I started feeling like my vision got worse after that,” he said, adding chemicals also got on his neck and in his hair. “All my skin was burning after that.”

He said while it was “hard,” he also took the situation as an opportunity to learn how to better take care of others.

“If that happened to someone else, now I know how to deal with that. That’s the way that I see it, at least.”

Bravo said if she were identified, then Kappa Sigma could add her to a list of blacklisted people who are not allowed in any fraternity party.

“There’s a lot of parties going on with other fraternities and this person could do the same thing in another party,” he said.

He said to prevent attacks like this in the future, Kappa Sigma might take names from people waiting in line.

“We try to control everything that we can, like people not fighting, or people not bringing alcohol,” Bravo said. “We just make sure everyone has a good time, and also control who gets in, and that kind of stuff.”

“At the end of the day, we are students and everyone wants to [have] a good time. So it’s always important to think about the safety,” Bravo said.

Bravo is an international student and he said he and his friends love Kappa Sigma parties, which are usually open to anyone: “The environment is really diverse.”

He said he wished the attacker took more time to think about others.

“What if I have asthma or some other medical situation?” he said. 

“Maybe she finds fun doing that [starting fights,] but the rest of the people wanted to go in and have other kinds of fun, and you take that from them just because you could not get in.”

Bravo said while security has scanners to check for metal weapons, he thought police could do random checks on people, too.

“They could go on the line and start checking random people. I think that way that might prevent other situations because if they do that in the next party, people that have the crazy idea to carry weapons or something will not because they might be checked by the police randomly,” he said.

Bravo encouraged anyone who knows the attacker to tell UCAPD.

“If people could share the name with someone or tell the police which person … it would be good, because now, if there is another party, I have to check to see if that person is coming,” he said.