A recent string of off-campus robberies, one in which two students were allegedly robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight, has the Department of Public Safety adding patrols to the streets and some students taking more precautions.

The past weekend marked a lull in robberies after DPS reported that three males in a dark blue Pontiac sedan stole a student’s laptop and money on the 100 block of Redfield Place at 10:45 p.m. on Nov. 1 and then demanded money from a student on the 700 block of Clarendon Street at 6:30 a.m. the next day.

Syracuse police pulled over several out-of-state residents in a vehicle Nov. 2 and conducted an investigation to see if they were connected to the robberies, said DPS Capt. Andy Mrozienski. But police released them after three robbery victims, two of which were Syracuse University students, could not identify them as the suspects, Mrozienski said. But some officers still suspect those out-of-state residents should have been prosecuted because there were no robberies while they were in custody, he said.

‘If they’re going back home and all the sudden we don’t have anymore, then I would say those were the guys,’ Mrozienski said. The robbery cases remain open.

DPS added an officer during both the daytime and nighttime nearly a week ago in the off-campus neighborhoods around SU to counter the string of robberies, Mrozienski said. There have been a total of five robberies since the beginning of the academic year on Aug. 31, which is one more robbery than there was up to this point last year, according to DPS statistics.

‘There’s no set thing as far as why it happens,’ Mrozienski said. ‘You could have somebody that’s recently released from prison, and they’re living in the city somewhere and all the sudden they say, ‘Oh I’m going to go out and try to get some money or rob somebody.”

But some students have expressed concern over the daytime robbery in Thornden Park on Oct. 28, when DPS reported that a man displayed what appeared to be a black revolver and robbed two students at 9:45 a.m. Daytime robberies do not frequently occur near SU, Mrozienski said.

‘Is it common? No. Does it happen? Yes,’ he said. ‘Crime happens 24 hours a day, and I don’t care if you live in the city or the country.’

The same suspect from the Thornden Park robbery is believed to be behind an attempted robbery on the corner of Ostrom Avenue and Madison Street at 3:25 a.m. on Oct. 31 and a robbery on the 500 block of Allen Street at 4:40 a.m. the same day, DPS reported in an e-mail. DPS said the suspect displayed what appeared to be a handgun in the first case, which remains open. Some criminals keep robbing the same area because they think they can get away with it, Mrozienski said.

The daytime robbery has aroused the most concern with some students, who called the criminals desperate and gutsy.

‘They just have no boundaries, what they’re willing to do, so it just makes them more scary,’ said Logan Sowa, a senior English and textual studies major.

She lived near the corner of Clarendon Street and Lancaster Avenue last year and often walked home alone from her sorority house, Kappa Alpha Theta, she said. But the robberies have made her slightly paranoid, she said.

‘I think sometimes we’re in a bubble here,’ she said. She said she forgets the city setting sometimes makes the campus unsafe.

The suspects in the most recent robberies either have no fear of getting caught or feel police won’t catch them, said Darya Rotblat, director of SU’s Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services.

‘In a way it’s a repercussion of living in a city, especially in a time of a recession when there’s poverty in a city,’ she said.

There is only so much the university can do to educate students to lock their doors or windows and walk in groups to prevent themselves from being robbery targets, she said.

‘It could be me, it could be you walking down the street,’ she said. ‘You just don’t know.’

The recent robberies have made it more important to walk with groups of friends at night, said Joe Farina, a senior accounting major.

‘It’s always in the back of your mind,’ he said.

Robbers stole his neighbor’s car on Ackerman Avenue in the first week of school last year, and police found it in downtown Syracuse, he said. But the suspect in the most recent daytime robbery took pretty desperate measures to take property, he said.

‘It’s one thing when it’s at night,’ he said. ‘You’d think you could walk through a public park at 9 o’clock in the morning and not be robbed at gunpoint.’

mcboren@syr.edu

 

Published on November 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm