Year's start sees spat of robberies

After a relatively safe summer, three Penn students and one alumna were robbed just off campus in the past week. All three of the incidents, one of which took place at gunpoint, were nighttime robberies. The armed robbery occurred early Tuesday morning on the 4100 block of Walnut Street, when two male students were returning to campus from the 7-Eleven on 42nd and Walnut streets at about 4 a.m. A man wielding a gun forced them to the ground and took $20 in cash and a watch. There were no injuries reported. A witness called the police, but no arrests were made. Police had no description of the suspect. Early Sunday morning, a female University student was robbed outside on 41st Street between Walnut and Locust streets. The student was walking with a friend when two teenage boys grabbed her purse. When she held onto the purse, the boys dragged her to the ground. The student then released her bag, containing a cell phone, and the boys fled. Police have since arrested a juvenile in connection with the robbery and are currently looking for the other boy. The third robbery occurred early Saturday morning on the 3900 block of Pine Street. A Penn alumna reported that a woman approached her from the rear, grabbed her purse, pushed her down a flight of stairs and escaped into a dark gray Sedan. Police have made no arrests in connection with the robbery. The suspect in that incident is described as a heavy-set black female in her late 20s or early 30s with a short black ponytail. She was wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt at the time of the incident. University Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Tom King said the surge in crime is not unusual for the beginning of the school year, because of the sudden increase in campus population. "There is a spike in all crime in September," King said, "but it's getting lower each year." King said Penn Police and Philadelphia Police are working together to investigate whether there was any link between the three robberies. He said police are looking into the possibility that the robberies may have been committed by a team of both men and women. Also, this week a man unaffiliated with the University reported that two men hit him in the back of the head while he was walking at the corner of 38th and Spruce streets at about 10:30 a.m. on Monday, knocking him to the ground. The man sustained jaw injuries, and the two men took $40 in cash from him. Despite this past week's incidents, campus crime in fall has fallen since 1996, when there were 30 armed robberies in September alone -- including the non-fatal shooting of a student during an attempted robbery on 40th Street. And last year, there were four robberies on or around campus during the first few weeks of September. In one of the most notable incidents from last September, five students walking on 40th Street between Chestnut and Walnut streets were robbed by a man wielding a semi-automatic weapon