ESF student robbed at gunpoint in off-campus lot
A student was robbed at gunpoint Monday night in the rear parking lot of 101 Smith Lane, just south of the Syracuse University campus.
The victim – whose name was not released because of the ongoing investigation – was alone and exiting his vehicle at 9:21 p.m. when two men approached him at the rear door of his apartment. One man showed a firearm and the robbers demanded the student’s backpack. After the student handed it over, the two men ran off.
‘Even though this took place well off campus, it is in an area where there are a fairly significant number of graduate students living,’ said Tony Callisto, chief of the Department of Public Safety. ‘It was important to alert the community that it had occurred.’
The Vincent Apartments, a popular housing option for graduate students, is located at 105 Smith Lane.
The victim, who is enrolled in the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, was not struck or assaulted, but readily gave up his possessions once the assailant flashed the gun.
‘This was a type of robbery where there was a threat,’ Callisto said. ‘The handgun was shown. [The student] gave his property and [the assailants] ran’
The victim described the first suspect to police as a black male, 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a thin build and unknown age. He was last seen wearing a black shirt and black hat and was carrying what is believed to be a long-barreled handgun. The second suspect is described as male, black, 6 feet tall, unknown age and last seen wearing a black shirt and dark colored hat.
Callisto said no arrests have been made, but DPS is stepping up patrols of Orange Watch areas – key places on North and South campuses and in the neighborhoods north and east of campus. Callisto said the Syracuse Police Department will increase patrols of those areas off-campus, like Smith Lane.
DPS sent out an e-mail to the university community Tuesday afternoon, alerting students of the robbery and reminding them of safety precautions.
Callisto said the timing of the robbery (before 10 p.m.) is unusual, though certainly not unheard of.
‘In the University Hill-area, more often than not, robberies occur after 10 or 11 at night until about four in the morning. So it is uncommon for the area to have an earlier robbery like this,’ he said. ‘But of course the darker it gets, the earlier it gets in the fall, and the more likely it is that a crime like this will happen. The folks that do these crimes want to do it under the cloak of night.’
Published on September 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm
