Following a string of thefts and two robberies that left University students anxious about their safety on campus, three individuals have confessed to unrelated campus crimes.
Two individuals are under arrest, one of whom admitted to committing six thefts in Freeman Athletic Center, and the other of whom confessed to one theft in the Butterfield dorms but who is believed to be involved in more. The Middletown Police Department is applying for a warrant to make a third arrest after an individual confessed to punching and robbing two students in two separate incidents on Monday with another, still unidentified, assailant.
For Director of Public Safety David Meyer, the confessions are the much-welcomed result of hard work by Public Safety officers, Middletown Police Department officers, and the University community, especially after Monday’s robberies.
“We’re piecing the puzzle together,” Meyer said.
According to a Public Safety Alert e-mail sent to the student body, at about 1:15 a.m. on Monday a student walking on William Street was knocked to the ground and robbed by two men. On Monday night, at about 10:45 p.m., another student was robbed in a similar manner, by men whose descriptions very closely matched those that the first student had given Public Safety.
“What concerned me in this one is the fact that we had two of these incidents so close together with very similar descriptions,” Meyer said. “We haven’t had that before. It’s not unusual to have a couple robberies or attempted robberies. To have two within 24 hours with similar suspects was very disconcerting to us.”
Gabriel Gordon ’11, the student who was robbed on Monday night, was similarly shocked by the assault.
“Because I was coming back from the CFA and I have made that same walk so many times this year, I really wasn’t expecting that,” Gordon said. “But it seems to be happening more often and in more places on campus, so in retrospect I should’ve been more careful.”
According to Gordon, he felt uneasy as he walked along a path near Olin Library and saw two men who were walking towards him and spread out on either side of the path. When he tried to circumvent both men, he was punched and held to the ground.
“They took my phone and my backpack and then they patted me down and ran,” he said.
Once Public Safety was notified and the police were called, the police approached several suspects, one of whom assaulted an officer before running away. As of Wednesday afternoon, however, one of the men responsible for both robberies has confessed and some of the stolen property has been recovered. It is not yet known whether he had the same accomplice in both robberies or if he acted with two different individuals.
According to Meyer, students who saw the assailants before the robberies occurred have been an integral part in searching for the one, or two, other men involved in the robberies.
It was also thanks to students that Public Safety was alerted to an individual stealing wallets in Freeman last Friday.
When questioned, the individual confessed to stealing in Freeman on six other occasions. And, although another individual confessed to only one theft in the Butterfield dorms, Meyer hopes to link him to several other thefts that occurred before spring break and were similar in nature. Meyer says that some of the property stolen from both Freeman and the Butterfield dorms has been recovered.
Meyer attributes these latest successes to students, Public Safety officers and Middletown Police officers all working together.
“Community members have been very helpful in providing timely information to Public Safety and the authorities,” he said. “We can’t do our job alone.”
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