A student was robbed at gunpoint early yesterday morning when she was returning to her off-campus home, police said.

The student had her key in the front door of her house on the 4600 block of Calvert Road around 2 a.m. when a man came up to her, brandished a silver handgun and demanded she hand over her cell phone and purse.

When the student gave the suspect her possessions, he fled east down Calvert Road toward the College Park Metro Station.

Although she was walking alone, the victim said she was taking precautions, including talking on her phone and carrying pepper spray. When the suspect pointed a gun at her face, however, she said it was too late to react.

“Thinking back, I’m not sure if there’s anything else I could’ve done,” said the victim, who declined to be named. “I’m not sure walking with another person would’ve changed that situation.”

Prince George’s County Police are investigating the armed robbery. The suspect is described as a black male in his 50s weighing roughly 165 pounds. The suspect was wearing a blue bandanna over his face with a dark shirt and jeans, said Maj. Kevin Davis, District 1 Commander.

Davis said there is no evidence linking the armed robbery to any recent mugging cases in the area.

Calvert Road residents said they were a little scared about a robbery on their street, but aren’t surprised.

“I might be more shocked if I were a freshman, but I hear things all the time, especially from e-mail alerts,” said senior studio art major Tom Sebring, who lives on the block the robbery occurred on.

College Park Landlord Committee chairman Dave Dorsch, who owns a property on the 4600 block, pointed to the crime as evidence the city needs to change the way it fights crime.

Dorsch suggested rather than setting up contracts for more officers, which the city council agreed to do over the summer, the city should invest in video monitoring software, Segway scooters and student-staffed neighborhood patrols, among other preventative measures.

“We need to catch these guys in the act. If we can catch a few of them, I bet these crimes would drop dramatically,” Dorsch said. “We can’t have a cop on every corner. We need to do something different.”

So far, District 1 robberies are down 23 percent compared to this time in 2007, Davis said.

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