Woman's iPad stolen, perpetrator not yet identified
The victim in Wednesday night’s on-campus robbery was a 22-year-old female USC student who had just left the Blatt PE Center and was walking east on Wheat Street using her iPad 2, according to police. She told police a man approached her from behind and told her to “turn around” near the intersection of Wheat and Pickens streets.
Upon turning around, the woman saw the suspect standing two feet away holding a black pistol at his waist, the report said. When he repeatedly ordered her to give him her iPad, she did, and he left, heading north on Pickens, the report said. The suspect was then joined by someone else who has not yet been identified, the report said.
The incident report described the suspect as a black male with dreadlocks wearing a “black puffy jacket” approximately 5 feet 10 inches, 180 pounds and between the ages of 20 to 25.
Carolina Alert, USC’s emergency notification system, sent out email and text message notifications and tweeted out the link to a USC police crime alert, which initially described the suspect as being 5 feet 7 inches and 150 pounds.
Scott Prill, associate director of Law Enforcement and Safety, confirmed the victim was a USC student. He said the discrepancies between the incident report and the original suspect descriptions is due to the raw, preliminary data USC police received directly from the victim.
“Sometimes discrepancies occur because average people don’t know how tall 5 feet 7 inches is and after talking to law enforcement, they get a better explanation,” Prill said.
While Carolina Alert did send out emails and text messages, other alert systems such as the campus sirens and TV crawler weren’t activated. Prill said they would have been if the suspect had entered a campus building.
“The text messages and emails go out to a lot of people, so immediately we have extra eyes and ears out there that are in the environment and can relay any suspicious information to the police,” Prill said.
Two other armed robberies have occurred on campus within the past year; however, notifications were not sent to students during either incident because, according to Prill, there was no imminent threat.
The first incident, which took place in September 2011, occurred an hour before it was reported to police. The second, in October 2011, had about a two and a half hour time lapse between when it occurred and when it was reported, Prill said.
“Last night the crime was fresh, police had a rough suspect description, and a direction of travel,” Prill said in an email. “Out of an abundance of caution, we felt it necessary to alert the Carolina Community while police canvassed the area for the suspect.”
As a result of the alerts, the police department received tips on subjects matching the description, Prill said. He added that while the tips were not the suspect, officers were able to follow up on the leads.
Anonymous tips can be submitted to Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC. To send an anonymous tip via text message, text CRIMES (274637) and mark the beginning of the message with “TIPSC.”