Weekend crimes include accident, armed robbery

No students were hurt, but a police officer was slightly injured Saturday. Two students were robbed at gunpoint near campus this weekend, and another student was hit by a car in a drunk-driving accident at 40th and Walnut streets, police said. No one was seriously injured in either incident. The robbery occurred Friday night at 10:20 p.m. as the two male students were walking across the Walnut Street Bridge over the Schuylkill River. As the students passed a car with its hood up along the side of the road, three men stepped onto the sidewalk, pointed a gun at the students and demanded their belongings. The men stole "numerous items and money" from the students before jumping into the car and fleeing west on Walnut Street, a University Police official said. Neither victim was able to describe the suspects to police. The car accident occurred shortly before midnight Saturday, when a drunk driver struck a student as he crossed Walnut Street. The male student refused medical treatment and left the scene after police arrived. But the driver responsible for the incident was "combatant" and fought with the officer who stopped his black Ford Mustang at 41st and Walnut streets, giving him a wrist injury, University Police said. The driver had a blood-alcohol level of .142 percent -- .042 percent above the legal limit -- and was charged with driving under the influence (DUI) and other offenses. The man refused to tell police his name before Philadelphia Police officers took him to the Police Administration Building at 8th and Race streets. A third incident occurred early Saturday morning when two groups of students began fighting on the porch of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at 39th and Spruce streets. The brawl -- which began at approximately 2:30 a.m. -- eventually filled the porch, an observer said. Fraternity monitors broke up the fight, and participants had begun leaving by the time University Police arrived at the scene. But the arrival of the police officers caused many of the remaining students to try to run from the house, according to a student who saw the fight. Police stopped and took the names of the students who were trying to leave, but no one was arrested and no students received citations, according to University Police. "The brothers at the house stated that there was just a misunderstanding," said a University Police officer. "Some guys came up and we took their names and told them to leave."