Check out the video above for an interview with Sonia Roberts, who lives near the site of the robbery.
A female Penn student was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday night by a man described as clean-shaven, black with dreadlocks and a white hoodie and jeans.
“At around 8:02 p.m. the PennComm Operations Center got a report of a robbery at the point of gun,” Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said in a phone interview following the incident.
The suspect “jumped out of a car in the area of 4100 block of Pine and demanded anything she had to give him,” Rush said. The victim complied with the suspect’s demands.
When a neighbor came out of the door, “the car sped away eastward,” Rush said. No description is currently available of the car. After the robbery, Penn Police interviewed the victim.
In the UPennAlert sent at 8:22 p.m., the Division of Public Safety reported the crime to have occurred at 4108 Pine St. However, from the street, there is no building labeled 4108 Pine. In a phone interview, DPS clarified that the correct address of the incident was on the 4100 block of Pine.
Though Penn Security responded to the robbery, neighbors say that they did not see increased police activity on their block after the incident. “I was on the doorstep when I received the text,” said a Penn senior who lives at 4109 Pine. However, he said police cars did show up on the scene a block over, at 40th and Pine streets.
“I didn’t see any lights or hear any sirens on the street at the time that the robbery was happening, but immediately afterwards I was down here smoking a cigarette with my friend, and I saw a lot of people trying to get walks home,” Engineering graduate student Sonia Roberts said.
By 8:30 p.m., when The Daily Pennsylvanian arrived at the scene, the block was empty except for some Penn security guards.
Two Penn security officers, who declined to offer their names, noted that while they were asked to report to the area around 4100 Pine, they did not receive the UPennAlerts. “All we got was black, male, dreads, white hoodie,” one security officer said. “I wish we got what you got,” he said, referring to the alerts.
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