Back to the Real Salt Lake Newsfeed

University of Utah police told Lauren McCluskey to report back if her ex-boyfriend’s behavior escalated. She did.

When University of Utah student and heptathlete Lauren McCluskey first reported that she was getting harassing messages from friends of a man she dated, campus police told her there wasn’t much they could do.

That changed the next day. McCluskey, 21, filed a new report — this time saying the man, Melvin Shawn Rowland, was threatening to release compromising photos of her. McCluskey showed a University of Utah police officer screenshots of her messages with Rowland, who asked for $1,000 in order to not distribute the photos, according to a police report released Tuesday.