Penn and Drexel confront string of armed robberies

Criminals don’t usually like the cold, says Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush. Not so this year. Despite low temperatures last week, Penn and Drexel police are facing a spike in armed robberies, with five armed robberies and one unarmed robbery reported between Feb. 7 and Feb. 15.

Over the course of approximately one week, two armed robberies occurred on Penn’s campus, and three armed robberies and an unarmed robbery occurred on Drexel’s campus. No suspects have been arrested in any of these cases, and five of the six were highway robberies, meaning the victims were robbed while walking down the street. The sixth was a residential robbery.

The first robbery at Penn occurred at 7:50 p.m. on the 4100 block of Pine. A female student reported a male suspect had pushed her from behind and then asked her to empty her pockets. When she turned around, she saw that the suspect had a small black handgun. She handed over her cell phone before the suspect “got spooked” and ran away, Rush said.

The woman described the suspect as a black male, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with shoulder-length dreadlocks and dark-colored jeans. He escaped from the scene in a dark colored vehicle, headed eastbound on Pine Street.

The second robbery at Penn occurred at 11:11 p.m. on Feb. 8 on 200 South 38th Street. The victim, who is related to a graduate student at Penn, said a man approached her from behind, told her he had a knife and then asked for her money. The suspect was described as a 5-foot-11 black man of medium build, wearing dark clothing, black Nike sneakers and a dark beanie cap.

While both Penn victims were female and the suspect in both cases fit a similar height description, to Penn Police it is still unclear whether the two suspects are the same person.

“We never rule out anything,” Rush said.

At Drexel, a student reported that three men hit him in the back of the head with what he believed to be a handgun. The alleged crime occurred on Feb. 7 at 1:59 a.m. on the 3600 block of Hamilton Street. The men then knocked him to the ground and fled with his wallet and bike, according to The Triangle, Drexel’s newspaper.

The next night, at 10:40 p.m. a non-Drexel affiliate was hit over the back of the head with a handgun and took cash at 200 Baring Street, The Triangle reported. The Drexel Department of Public Safety was unable to be reached before this article went to print.

Armed robberies are not frequent at Penn, Rush said, especially in the winter.

The University City Public Safety Group, which includes Philadelphia Police, Penn Police, Drexel Police and the district attorney’s office, is working to investigate and solve the robberies, Rush said. The departments are sharing intelligence and looking for citywide robberies that fit similar descriptions.

Rush urged Penn students to use walking escorts until the cases are solved, who can be approached on the street or called through the Penn Walk number.

“Everyone’s so bundled up, so clearly just being aware of your surroundings” is important for staying safe, Rush added.

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