News

Student held up in armed robbery on campus

July 6, 2010 11:29 am by Tracey Taylor

A student was the victim of an armed robbery on campus on Sunday, July 4, at 3:01 pm, according to the University of California Police Department.

The victim, a 23 year old summer school student, was walking on the service road between Minor Hall and the Women’s Faculty Club, listening to her iPod when two males approached her. They demanded her property and one of the suspects held a knife to the victim’s stomach. The victim complied and gave the suspects her iPod, iPhone and wallet. The two suspects then fled the scene northbound toward the Women’s Faculty Club.

UCPD searched the area but were unable to locate the suspects. The victim was not injured during the encounter.

The suspects were described as a white male, mid-20s, 6’01” in height, 175 lbs, with a thin build, light brown hair, wearing a white t-shirt and pierced earrings. And a white male, mid-20s, 5’09” in height, 160 lbs, with a thin/medium build, light brown hair and  wearing a white t-shirt.

If you have any information about this crime, please contact the University of California Police Department Criminal Investigation Bureau on (510) 642-0472 between 8AM–5PM, or (510) 642-6760 at all other times.

If you wish to remain anonymous you can contact UCPD via its CalTIP website.

14 Comments

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  • Jennifer

    Is the victim’s race or ethnicity at *all* relevant to this story?

  • Lindsey

    Yet another reason to not wear your ipod when you are out and about.

  • laura menard

    Race relevant, well if you intend to have an accurate description of the suspects than skin color would obviously be important.

    As for blaming the victims for wearing ipods, carrying cell phones, owning laptops, it really is getting old, how about blaming the irresponsible public officials who have never taken crime in Berkeley seriously.

    Just got another call from a Daily CAL reporter looking for community perspective on policing in Berkeley. If it wasn’t for the Cleary Act the city and UCB would be sweeping these incidents under the rug, so that Berkeley could continue to pretend all is well.

  • http://www.tktaylor.com Tracey Taylor

    Jennifer: As the author of this post I included the race of the victim purely because it was included in the release put out by the UCPD. But after seeing your question I have removed it because, on reflection, I agree with you that it is not relevant to the story.

  • elmwood neighbor

    Sometimes it can be important to include ethnicity (or race or gender) in a crime report if a specific group of people are possibly being targeted. I think this was true in the fall of 2007 when there were a series of attacks on campus of(as described in the police alerts) Asian males.

    For those interested, you can read the UCB Crime Alerts here

    http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2010/

  • elmwood neighbor

    Another interesting site to read is the UC Berkeley Police Daily Log. Fascinating to read all the events UC Police attend to each day.

    http://police.berkeley.edu/bulletins/index.html

  • laura menard

    Race relevant ? this is just another example of the French say the US has lost its way with PC code dominating common sense.

    Why not remove gender, wouldn’t want to promote the notion of “bad boys” now would we.

    Seriously the issue of crime and race is and continues to be relevant in many ways, mandating reporting, environmental prevention, detainment disparity rates, etc.

    Personally as an adult I do not appreciate information being censured especially arbitrary notion of political correctness.

    Explain how is it irrelevant to properly identify suspects, in this case, still at large.

    Ironically we finally get some bad ass white boys with knives and you all are offended. HUH?

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    If it wasn’t for the Cleary Act the city and UCB would be sweeping these incidents under the rug, so that Berkeley could continue to pretend all is well.

    That’s an odd assertion given that the UCPD goes beyond the requirements of the Clery act and reports crimes it isn’t required to report. I’ve little doubt that the Clery act helped in part by encouraging multi-campus exchanges about best practices, by encouraging software vendors to create efficiencies, and so forth. Nevertheless, UCPD actively reports more than is required.

    As for blaming the victims for wearing ipods, carrying cell phones, owning laptops, it really is getting old,

    Nobody here did so. It is worth noting, perhaps, that iPod “crimes of opportunity” are an international phenomenon, that transit authorities and police departments in many cities have suggested not walking around with your hearing cut off and valuable property on display, that there are safety reasons beyond crime which suggest not walking around that way, and so forth. This is not “blaming the victim” it’s common sense. Comes from the same book as such pearls of wisdom as: don’t leave valuable property on display in your unattended car; avoid flashing large wads of money on busy urban streets; if you carry a wallet in areas favorable to pick-pocketing, consider using a front pocket (there are health advantages, too); etc.

  • http://www.tktaylor.com Tracey Taylor

    Laura: The racial identification in question is that of the victim not the suspects.

  • laura menard

    I can also count on TL attempts to educate me, the Cleary Act is about transparency and community notification.

    Breaking and entering used to be highest category until personal technology changed the target for “opportunity”.

    My points stands, Berkeley record of taking crime seriously speaks for itself.

    Gee TL what is the current hotspot for 211 (Ipods, cell phones) and ratpack assaults? answer the grinding wall right across the street from BHS, behind City Hall, across the street from BUSD headquaters, and the CoB police station. Time of day, during and after school, especially during the warm months.

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    Well, Ms. Menard, let me try to separate out your important, valid (as far as I can tell) point from some of the other things you’ve said.

    You write:

    Gee TL what is the current hotspot for 211 (Ipods, cell phones) and ratpack assaults? answer the grinding wall right across the street from BHS, behind City Hall, across the street from BUSD headquaters, and the CoB police station. Time of day, during and after school, especially during the warm months.

    I might prefer “a current” rather than “the current” but I don’t dispute you on that. If you look at the official crime maps for Berkeley, you won’t see much indication of that hotspot. If you look deeper, you find an abundance of accounts of unreported crime of that sort, in that area, and even in the hallways of BHS. The most plausible accounts I’ve seen as to why an apparent large amount of crime goes unreported there say that on the one hand, students who are victims or witnesses are often fearful of coming forward, and on the other hand, as you have said in many forums, BHS and BPD have a long history of being slow to act, weak on preventative measures, and feeble when action is eventually taken. If you want to call that situation “swept under the rug” you won’t find much argument from me. I think its one of your stronger causes.

    But, now, there are other pockets of crime – other hotspots too. On and around campus is a long standing one.

    You asserted that were it not for the Clery act, UCPD would have swept this particular incident under the rug. Well, in fact, the UCPD publicizes more incidents than it is required to under Clery. UCPD seems to act as though it believes publicizing these crimes is one part of an overall strategy for minimizing them.

    You asserted that victims were being blamed when nothing of the sort is going on.

    You railed against some imagined effort, here, to censor a description of the suspects when it was only information about the victim that was being considered.

    You went on, having incorrectly assumed people were questioning mention of the suspects’ race to insult everyone and you separately singled me out (for the crime of trying to sort out some facts from your assertions).

    Well, gosh.

  • tizzielish

    I understood the concern raised by Jennifer, in the first comment, to be only to ask why the race of the VICTIM was identified. Then others came along and, apparently did not accurate absorb what was actually written and rushed to the conclusion that identifying the race of the suspects had been objected to.

    I appreciated Tracey coming back and correcting her choice about having disclosed the victim’s race and it confused me that Laura continued to gripe at her mistaken impression that anyone had objected to disclosing the suspect’s race.

    Then Lindsey came along in comment number two and made what I read as a lighthearted point about wearing an ipod when out and about . . . and Laura also seems to have interpreted that in a negative, misunderstood way. I didn’t get that Lindsey was blaming the victim for wearing an ipod. Laura projected that onto Lindsey’s comment.

    Thomas Lord. I see your comments on lots of blogs related to Berkeley (and others). You tend to use a tone in your writing that often grates on me. I am responsible for how I respond to other people’s behavior and you get to behavej any way you wish. I have taken to trying to avoid reading anything you write because of your often-grating, often-condescending tone. It occurs to me that you might not be aware that you come across that way. It also occurs to me that like many males, esp. white ones who tend to wear their unearned rank and privilege with maddening righteousness, that you might not care that you often come across as grating, condescending and know-it-all.

    A tempest in a teapot? What matters in this particular conversation is that a young woman, minding her own business, living her ordinary life in Berkeley, was mugged in public by two young adult white males.

    I didn’t see the original Berkeleyside post, written by Tracy, as blaming the victim. I didn’t see Lindsey’s ipod comment as blaming the victim. I don’t understand why Laura took a griping complaining tone, turning this story into a rant about how Berkeley sweeps crime under the rug and complaining about UC police when, as far as this story goes, did not actually do anything wrong. Laura, howsabout you reserve your whining criticism for actual mistakes instead of draining us with your sloppy comprehension?

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    Tizzielish,

    This is a little off topic for this particular post about the crime but I would like to respond to your comments about my comments, if I may.

    I do appreciate your feedback and I hope I’m not immune to criticism.

    It’s “funny” that I’ve gotten roughly equal amounts of two kinds of direct feedback: “Your comments are so annoying I never read them” and “I always read your comments, they’re one of the better things out there”. Those are slightly overstated characterizations but only slightly. One side mostly in public, the other mostly in private.

    That’s a horrible position to be in. It is easy to mistake that for importance or influence or insight. It is easy – so easy as to be wrong – to conclude “Well, I must be on to something if I’m that polarizing.” Giving in to that conclusion would be, in my view, like “going over to the dark side”: practicing the art of pushing people’s hot buttons rather than the art of having useful discussions about issues that matter.

    With that in mind, I note that you invite me to contemplate myself as someone who cares not about my “tone,” perhaps due to my occupying the position of being white and male in a society in which that demographic is unfairly privileged in many ways. (Which in a way at least gets us near the on-topic issue of racial information in crime reporting – but I won’t go there, just now.)

    Perhaps, indeed. I’m pretty sure that’s not it but I’ll keep it in mind.

  • laura menard

    tizzielish

    Easy to name call when you hide your identity, and gee you are right I am complaining about the lousy state of crime in Berkeley, but I missed your presence in the years of community service where some of us got our lousy attitude from.

    As for the overreaction to censoring race, it has been suggesting here on this blog before and is a constant debate in local media, and yes it irritates me, both suspect and victims race, ethnicity, and neighborhood matter in the ultimate analysis.

    signing off, don’t like playing in this sandbox anymore…….