Four male students were robbed within sight of the Main Green on Prospect Street, between Waterman and Angell streets, at approximately 9 p.m. Friday night. One of the male suspects brandished a silver handgun.
Stephen Babish '08, Brandon Dolly '08, Andrew Potter '08 and Norman Yang '08 were walking south on Prospect Street when two males approached them from behind. One of the men displayed a gun and demanded the students place their money on the ground. Babish, Dolly and Potter placed $32 and Potter's wallet on the ground. The men then directed the students to walk south on Prospect Street, while they took the money and headed north.
The students called the Department of Public Safety when they reached Babish's room in Caswell Hall. DPS alerted the Providence Police Department, and officers from both departments interviewed the victims and searched the area for the suspects later Friday night.
The suspect with the gun jogged up behind the students and told them to stop, Potter said.
"We just kept walking," Babish said. "Then he said, 'Hold the (expletive) up,' and that's when we realized we were going to be robbed," he said.
The second suspect stayed about 10 yards behind the students and did not speak at all, according to Dolly. The students were not facing the second suspect throughout the encounter, Dolly said.
"We were pretty much focusing on the gun (that the first man was holding)," he said.
Dolly was unable to describe the second suspect, but said the armed suspect was black, approximately 5'10" and weighed around 180 pounds. In a crime alert e-mailed to the Brown community Saturday morning by Chief of Police Mark Porter, the suspects were described as the same age as the victims -19 or 20 years old.
When the robbery occurred, the students were walking back from Providence Place Mall toward Brown's campus, Babish said.
The students were in front of the Office of Admission at 45 Prospect St. when the men approached them, Potter said. "It didn't seem that dangerous beforehand because it was so close to the Main Green," he added.
Babish agreed: "(The area) wasn't at all sketchy. ... It just happened to be unpopulated," he said.
But Dolly noted the lack of lighting. "There was just one streetlight," he said. "It was not very well lit at all."
Although none of the victims saw a car, Yang said they heard a car behind them before they were robbed and heard a car drive off after the incident. None of the students saw the suspects getting into a car because they did not look back as they walked away from the scene.
The incident was the second armed robbery prompting an e-mailed crime alert this semester. The first alert was sent in response to a Feb. 19 incident when two men armed with a gun and a knife robbed a student as she walked back from Providence Place Mall to her off-campus apartment. The student was walking at the intersection of Young Orchard and Cooke streets around 10 p.m. on a Friday night when she was robbed.
"We look at (the incidents) as two isolated crimes, but ... we try to see if there are any patterns or any things we can alert our officers about," Porter said.
Porter said the incidents indicate that DPS should increase patrols on the outskirts of campus. He said the fact that the robbery was on campus and so close to the Main Green worries him, but he is more concerned the incident occurred at all.
"It's not the location that concerns me, it concerns me that the student is a victim - that's the first thing that concerns me," he said.
The students filed a report with DPS. Officers told them that PPD would contact them later to file a formal statement, but that has yet to occur, according to Porter. PPD detectives could not be reached for comment. Potter and the victims have not heard any updates from PPD.
