Joke Issue: Penn Police shows little concern about string of robberies

A wave of lunchtime robberies has many students hungry for an answer.

Undergraduates have been forced to “hand over their lunch money” after being threatened each of the last 10 days, according to Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush.

Each time the incident occurred between 12:00 and 12:30 p.m. The suspect in each case has been described as a man wearing wayfarer sunglasses, jeans and a button down.

“What we have here is a couple of bad guys working during the day. I don’t really think of this as a trend,” Rush said. “And if the similar clothing means this is just one suspect, you may well lock up every guy in the school.”

A DPS investigation, she said, has confirmed that each day, the robber has walked directly from the Compass to Hemo’s, a popular campus food truck, following the robbery, according to Rush.

“What can I say? I make a mean grilled chicken sandwich. It makes sense people want it,” food truck operator Hemo Abdulaziz said.

To stop this wave of robberies, “We’re using all the tools in our toolbox, like more undercover officers and adding extra overtime shifts,” Rush said.

The Compass, at 37th Street and Locust Walk, is one of Penn’s most heavily-traveled pedestrian arteries.

Rush said that everyone has a role to play in keeping Penn safe. “Safety and security is a shared responsibility,” she said.

She suggest that students “target harden” themselves and their belongings to make them more secure.

Engineering sophomore Greg Sheehan said that although he learned later he was just a few feet away from yesterday’s robbery when it occurred, he had no clue a crime was ongoing.

“I heard some shouting, but just assumed it was some a capella group selling tickets or something,” Sheehan said.

Many students indicated the recent disturbances would not affect their walking patterns.

“Locust Walk is too important of a thoroughfare for students to avoid it,” Wharton senior Allister Buckwald said. “Dare I say, it’s too big to fail.”

College freshman Joey DiSantonio, seen wearing a tight-fitting tee shirt and chugging Muscle Milk, said walking the two extra blocks to Pottruck Health and Fitness Center to avoid the Compass “would be a bit too much cardio.”

Rush said that the Penn community should also focus on other crime trends, like the decrease in bike thefts. She also added that she was “thrilled” about a long-term decline in thefts from buildings, a drop she credits to DPS’s iniative Operation Building Safe.

This article appeared in the Daily Pennsylvanian’s Joke Issue 2013. For more information, click here.

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