For attorney Deron Freeman, the phone call was like so many others he has fielded. Parents were on the other end of the line, worried about police interrogating their son.

Freeman hung up and called University of Connecticut police, who were questioning John William Lomax III of Bloomfield, Conn. Freeman informed detectives that Lomax, 21, now had an attorney, and Freeman showed up on campus an hour later, around 1 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.