Assailant robs two students at gunpoint Tuesday night

Two students were robbed at gunpoint at 45th and Pine streets Tuesday night. Neither student was injured during the incident, which occurred at 11:30 p.m. The male freshman and female sophomore were outside Sam's Place at 405 S. 45th Street when a man with a black semiautomatic pistol approached them and demanded their wallets, according to University Police. Students told police the robber was a black male in his late 20s with a beard, was approximately 5'11" and weighed 160 pounds. After the man took the students' wallets, he got into a waiting, dark 1980s sedan. The driver and passenger then fled east on Pine Street. The assailant took $3 in cash and a PennCard from the male student and $15 in cash, a PennCard and five credit cards from the female student. University Police have not made any arrests in the incident, which remains under investigation. The robbery occurred only a block away from the site of a similar incident Sunday morning. In the Sunday incident, a student and her boyfriend were robbed at gunpoint outside the student's home on the 4400 block of Pine Street. University Police do not believe the two crimes are linked, although they are still looking into both incidents. Including the Sunday and Tuesday robberies, a total of 12 students have been victimized in eight incidents so far this semester. None of these recent robberies affecting students have occurred on-campus. The robbery at gunpoint Tuesday night at 45th and Pine was actually outside the University Police Department's regular patrol area -- which spans from Market Street to Baltimore Avenue and from the Schuylkill River to 43rd Street. But University Police often handle cases involving Penn students in conjunction with the Philadelphia Police Department, regardless of where the crime occurs. The number of robberies at gunpoint handled by University Police dramatically fell from last year to this fall. A comparison of such crimes between August 29 and September 20 this year and the same period in 1996 revealed a 50 percent drop in robberies at gunpoint.