What I find interesting is that they have filed harassment charges at all. Harassment is a federal crime (meaning cases are heard in federal court). It is very, very difficult to get harassment charges to stick, but if they do, they have a mix of state and federal crimes to pursue against these people in an instance in which no one was killed or significantly injured. That’s all we know.
If the prosecutors did what you are suggesting, they would risk the grand jury throwing all the charges out. It’s about building credibility with the jury, which is not easy to do for any attorney. Not every juror is inclined to believe the prosecution right away, and that is why juries are used to determine verdicts.
Lehigh’s a great school and it sounds like the local government there is handling this very awful situation well so far. I wouldn’t take any of that for granted.