Days after an armed robbery at a Leonardtown apartment, all three suspects have been apprehended and charged, but members of the community are still trying to return to their normal routines.
The scare has caused minor changes, they said. They’re checking the door more carefully when they hear a knock and locking windows they once left open.
“We used to open the door to see who it was,” sophomore biology major Hannah Miller said. “Now we use the peephole or check through the windows. We really all are a lot more cautious.”
The motel-style housing community sits on the edge of the campus and is an area that Interim University Police Chief Maj. Mark Sparks describes as a “transitional zone” between the university and the city of College Park, and thus is an area of special concern.
Over the past few nights, police have stepped up their presence in the area, said Capt. John Brandt, a University Police spokesman. Police and the Department of Resident Life have also encouraged residents to take extra precautions. So far, community members seem to be taking that advice to heart.
“Our windows are locked all the time now,” sophomore landscape architecture major Mike Humber said, who lives in the building where the robbery occurred. “We used to open them to let in air, but now they pretty much stay closed. We leave the blinds closed a lot, too.”
But while some are being more cautious, many students said they still feel relatively safe, given the speedy arrests following the incident and how the victims were targeted.
“It was unnerving at first, but we’re trying to get things back to normal,” sophomore Russian major Rick Jackson said. “The police are rolling by a lot, and they seem to have it well-covered. I think they’ve shown they take this stuff extremely seriously.”
Not everyone thinks Leonardtown is as secure as before.
“I feel a lot less safe,” Miller said. “It’s a lot different living here than in the dorms. I don’t feel safe going out by myself to do laundry. It’s not really a part of main campus, and it’s not really protected by anything.”
Attempts to reach Leonardtown Resident Director Kelly Tavenner were unsuccessful.
The victims of the shotgun holdup felt that police may have downplayed the incident by saying it was targeted.
“It almost sounded like it was our fault,”said sophomore kinesiology major Phil Coblentz, one of the victims. “It’s a little irritating that some people think it couldn’t happen to them or they’d do something different if someone pointed a gun at them.”
Brandt said the police department was just trying to provide students with as much information about the crime as possible so they could make their own judgments.
Police are looking into adding more dedicated patrols in the area and possibly adding more security cameras, Sparks said.
Miller said she has noticed more police patrols. “Hopefully they’ll stick around. Any extra precaution from the university would be great.”
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