Two students were robbed in Graduate Hills early Saturday at the same location a robbery had occurred a week earlier, police said.
The students – whom police did not identify beyond saying they were male – were walking on the 3400 block of Tulane Drive just after midnight Friday when they were approached by two men, according to a crime report sent out by University Police.
The crime report says one of the suspects asked one of the victims for $20, then punched him when he took out his wallet, which the suspect then stole. The second suspect then punched the second victim and stole his cell phone, the report said. It adds that the students did not require medical attention.
University Police Spokesman Paul Dillon said police think this robbery could be related to another robbery on Tulane Drive that occurred in the early hours of the previous Saturday, although the descriptions of the suspects listed in the two crime reports are very different.
“The descriptions are sketchy at best, and not very reliable,” Dillon said. “We have other information that leads us to believe they might be related.”
Dillon said police hope to solve the crimes soon and have stepped up patrols of Graduate Hills in the meantime, but Anu Kothari, president-elect of the Graduate Student Government and a former Graduate Hills resident, said their efforts are not enough.
“It’s been an ongoing problem, again and again,” Kothari said, saying that when she lived in the neighborhood a few years ago, she both witnessed crimes and knew friends that had been robbed. “They said they’d build a gated community; that hasn’t been done. The rents should be adjusted in accordance with the protection they’re providing.”
Dillon suggested Graduate Hills residents make use of the police escort service when walking around the area at night. Kothari, however, had other advice: “Move out.”
“They’re paying these rents for these overpriced and terribly unsafe apartments,” she said. “Make them lower their rents; make them provide more safety.”
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