News

UW flashing suspect is sex offender with rape conviction

Quick Facts: 

  • Flashing suspect convicted of rape in 1993.
  • Charged for one UW case, suspected in two others.
  • Police arrested him near Schmitz Hall.
  • Arraignment later this month in King County Superior Court.

A man suspected of exposing himself to multiple University of Washington students has been arrested, and court show he’s a sex offender with a history or rape.

Kalvin Andreas Snowden, 39, was arrested June 25 and has been charged with felony indecent exposure for an incident at Schmitz Hall that day.

“The University of Washington Police is continuing to investigate two other incidents of indecent exposure on the University of Washington campus that happened close in time to this one that may be connected to the defendant,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Carla Carlstrom wrote in charging documents.

She said Snowden poses a community safety risk.

About 1:50 p.m. on June 25, a young woman was sitting in Schmitz Hall when police say Snowden sat next to her and started masturbating.

Schmitz Hall, at 1400 NE Campus Parkway near the Henry Art Gallery, has several staff offices including data services and the office of the registrar.

The woman “believed that the individual matched the description of the suspect in a bulletin she had read from the UW police,” a UW police lieutenant wrote in a probable cause document. The woman “had received an e-mail in her UW e-mail account of ‘Notification of a Criminal Incident’ from UWPD. The notification stated that on June 24, 2014 at approximately 1300 hours an unknown black male had exposed himself to a female victim in a Schmitz Hall elevator and masturbated in front of the victim.”

The woman in the June 25 incident told police “she felt something bad was going to happen, her stomach tightened and she was shaking,” according to the probable cause document. She called police and acted like she was looking for someone else as she gave the man’s description.

UW police officers went to Schmitz Hall and the woman told them the man walked by her and ran back into the building after officers arrived. She pointed out Snowden to a sergeant – and Snowden started running.

Two other officers contacted Snowden after he left Schmitz Hall. He “was holding a scrunched up paper napkin in his left hand,” police wrote in an incident report. The young woman told officers he was holding a paper towel in his left hand as he fondled himself.

Snowden denied masturbating on the Schmitz Hall bench. Officers took him into custody and learned he was a registered sex offender during a name check. He has only been charged for the June 25 indecent exposure case.

Court records show in 1993 Snowden was convicted of second-degree rape in Alabama. Snowden’s criminal history also includes a third-degree assault conviction from 2011, a felony, and misdemeanor convictions for assault, violation of a protection order and criminal solicitation.

Snowden is being held on $100,000 bail and is scheduled to have an arraignment, where he’ll enter a plea, later this month.

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