Genevieve Hay | Student Life

On Monday, several electronic devices were stolen from the Zeta Beta Tau house on Forsyth.

On Monday, a laptop was stolen from the ZBT (Zeta Beta Tau) house, located on the 7000 block of Forsyth, and on Tuesday several electronic items were stolen from an apartment on the 7200 block of Forsyth, according to Ransom.

Typically, fewer crimes occur on Forsyth than north of campus, where many students live.

“This is very unusual [to have crimes on Forsyth],” Ransom said.

University City police have added patrols to the area, he said.

The crimes caught some students off-guard.

“I was definitely surprised because I feel like nothing happens [on Forsyth]. But talking to [other students on Forsyth], they sometimes leave their doors unlocked,” junior Marilyn Piccirillo said. “I don’t feel less safe though, because I’ve seen so many more police.”

Washington University police issued a crime alert about the Monday incident.

Ransom says that the ZBT house was unlocked and most members were on campus when the crime occurred. One remaining brother told police he saw the suspect wandering around and asked what he was doing. The suspect replied he was looking for someone.

Once he left, members discovered he had taken a laptop. The incident occurred at around 7:45 p.m.

The witness reported that the suspect left in a white pickup truck occupied by a heavyset white female.

The police are searching for the female and the suspect: a 30 to 40 year old bald black male, 5’9 to 5’10 in height weighing 160-170 pounds. The suspect wore a dark coat and pants.

On Tuesday, a different victim returned to his or her apartment and reported stolen electronics at 6:54 p.m. Ransom says the suspect forced his or her way through a locked back door.

Ransom encouraged students to always lock their doors and call the police if they see suspicious people.

“In general, Forsyth is seen as a safer place to live. It just shows that wherever you are you have to be attentive,” junior Corey Cantor said.

On Monday, a laptop was stolen from the ZBT (Zeta Beta Tau) house, located on the 7000 block of Forsyth, and on Tuesday several electronics were stolen from an apartment on the 7200 block of Forsyth, according to Ransom.

Fewer crimes typically occur on Forsyth than north of campus, where many students live.

“This is very unusual [to have crimes on Forsyth],” Ransom said.

University City police have added patrols to the area, he said.

Washington University police issued a crime alert about the Monday incident.

Ransom says that the ZBT house was unlocked and most members were on campus when the crime occurred. One remaining told police he saw the suspect wandering around and asked what he was doing. The suspect replied he was looking for someone.

Once he left the brothers discovered he had taken a laptop. The incident occurred at around 7:45 p.m.

The witness reported that the suspect left in a white pickup truck occupied by a heavyset white female.

The police are searching for the female and the suspect: a 30 to 40 year old bald black male, 5’9 to 5’10 in height weighing 160-170 pounds. The suspect wore a dark coat and pants.

On Tuesday, a different victim returned to his or her apartment and reported stolen electronics at 6:54 p.m. Ransom says the suspect forced his or her way through a locked back door. A crime alert was sent to students Wednesday afternoon.

Ransom encouraged students to always lock their doors and call the police if they see suspicious people.

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The victim was not injured.

The victim reported being approached by two suspects at 6:30 p.m. One displayed a handgun and demanded her property. She gave the suspects her wallet and they fled.

The robbery took place close to the Lewis Center, which is a part of the Sam Fox School. In an email sent out to all art students, the school offered advice:

“Please be vigilant in coming and going to and from the Lewis Center in pairs and take caution in moving from one side of the facility to the other after dark. Although we have been without incident on the Lewis Center grounds, this recent robbery’s proximity to our facility is a concern. Please exercise care and always have a cell phone at hand with peers names and numbers on speed dial,” the email said.

Police are looking for suspects described as a white male approximately 17-19 years of age and 5’11 and a black male with a thin mustache approximately 17-19 years of age.

University City Police Captain Michael Ransom encourages any victims to call the police immediately after any crime. He said that this victim conducted other business before contacting the police.

“If [the victim] called earlier, there’s a chance [the suspects] could have been caught,” Ransom said.

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The shooter, Todd Shepard, 43, received the verdict on Thursday for the crime committed in Oct., 2008.

The case now moves into the penalty phase. Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch is seeking the death penalty.

Shepard testified that he shot University City Police Sgt. Michael King, who was a graduate of Washington University, on purpose as part of a plan to start an anti-government revolution.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Shepard said his actions were motivated in part by his history. In 2001, his girlfriend was shot and killed by a St. Louis County police officer.

Shepard recalled the moment of the shooting at his trial, the Post-Dispatch reported.

King had been sitting in his police cruiser on the corner of Leland Avenue and Delmar Boulevard.

Shepard’s testimony revealed that he had past drug arrests and is serving a 23-year federal sentence.

Related

Students mugged near Loop; friend helps them capture assailants

University City Police have arrested and charged Bryant N. Taylor for the robbery of sophomore Eric Tsai on Sunday evening.

Taylor, 20, who lives on the 7700 block of Folk Avenue, has been charged with 2nd degree robbery in connection to the mugging of Tsai and sophomore Aaron Belkin on the 500 block of Melville Avenue around 7:50 p.m. on Sunday.

The arrest was announced by a press release from the University City Police Department (UCPD) on Monday afternoon.

Belkin said that he and Tsai were assaulted by four assailants as they were walking on Melville toward the Delmar Loop. Tsai was struck in the face and dropped his wallet and cell phone, according to Belkin.

Belkin recalled an assailant instructing Tsai to run toward Washington University if he did not want be hurt further. While it was unclear at the time if the assailants possessed a weapon, UCPD has concluded that no weapons were involved in the robbery.

The charge of 2nd degree robbery is for robbery by force but with no weapons.

Two of the assailants fled the scene following the robbery while the remaining two pursued Belkin, who was running around the area looking for help.

“I started yelling, ‘Someone call the police,’ and nobody heard,” Belkin said. “I was helpless; I was trying to find someone, and they were punching my friend.”

Belkin said he saw a girl getting out of her car on Kingsbury Boulevard and told her to remain in the vehicle and call the police. The assailants then tried to flee, and Belkin pursued them.

Holt said he was driving on Melville toward Delmar Boulevard when he saw Belkin pursuing two of the assailants on foot near the Greenway dumpsters. Holt, who eventually drove on Delmar to Leland Avenue, picked up Belkin at the street corner before making a U-turn on Delmar to pursue the two suspects.

During this episode, Holt said, he dialed 911 and continued to relay the suspects’ location to the University City Police Department.

“We ran down there, and I made eye contact with one [of the suspects], and he looked at me and looked really frazzled,” Holt said. “He made wild eyes at me. He looked so angry, like he was about to hurt someone.”

The chase concluded on Delmar near the Tivoli Theatre, where police arrested the two assailants around 8:10 p.m., Holt and Belkin said. The suspects were identified because they had Tsai’s phone and wallet.

Tsai, whose face was bruised, arrived and identified the suspects by their faces. The entire ordeal ended by 8:20 p.m.

UCPD would not comment on the details of the robbery. The investigation of the robbery remains ongoing.

It is unclear whether Taylor was apprehended on Delmar near the Tivoli or if he was arrested at a later time.

The victims initially reported that the robbery occurred on the 400 Block of Melville, but the report from UCPD has listed the incident as occurring on the 500 block after interviews with the suspect and victims.

Washington University Police Chief Don Strom said that the University did not issue a crime alert to the community since the threat of another incident was neutralized by Taylor’s arrest.

Strom also advised that victims consider the pros and cons of pursuing an assailant, but he emphasized that he was not criticizing the actions of Belkin and Holt.

“It was a choice that they made,” Strom said, adding that Belkin and Holt had determined that any threat against further injury to them was worth the risk of the pursuit.

Strom did, however, offer some general guidelines for victims of a robbery or similar crime.

“We wouldn’t encourage people to chase somebody. Just notify the police as quickly as they can. If they can keep them in eyesight from a distance, [that's fine].”

Editor’s note: Last update at February 14, at 3:30 am

Two students were mugged at the corner of Waterman and Melville avenues Sunday evening but helped police arrest two of their assailants after a friend came to their aid.

Sophomore Aaron Belkin said he and classmate Eric Tsai were mugged by four assailants as they were walking toward the Delmar Loop.

Junior Chris Holt, a friend of the two students, picked up Belkin in his car after seeing him chase two of the assailants on foot. Belkin and Holt continued the chase by car, and they updated the police of the assailants’ position until the two assailants were arrested on the Loop.

The four assailants were described as black males wearing dark sweatshirts. Belkin said the four followed him and Tsai toward the Loop and physically assaulted the two around 8 p.m. Tsai surrendered his wallet and cell phone to the assailants.

At least one assailant instructed Tsai to run toward Washington University. Two of the assailants fled the scene while the remaining two pursued Belkin, who was running around the area looking for help.

“I started yelling, ‘Someone call the police,’ and nobody heard,” Belkin said. “I was helpless; I was trying to find someone, and they were punching my friend.”

Belkin said he saw a girl getting out of her car on Kingsbury Boulevard and told her to remain in the vehicle and call the police. The assailants then tried to flee, and Belkin pursued them.

Holt said he was driving on Melville toward Delmar Boulevard when he saw Belkin pursuing two of the assailants on foot near the Greenway dumpsters. Holt, who eventually drove on Delmar to Leland Avenue, picked up Belkin at the street corner before making a U-turn on Delmar to pursue the two suspects.

During this episode, Holt said, he dialed 911 and continued to relay the suspects’ location to the University City Police Department.

“We ran down there, and I made eye contact with one [of the suspects], and he looked at me and looked really frazzled,” Holt said. “He made wild eyes at me. He looked so angry, like he was about to hurt someone.”

The chase concluded on Delmar near the Tivoli Theatre, where police arrested the two assailants around 8:10 p.m., Holt and Belkin said. The suspects were identified because they had Tsai’s phone and wallet.

Tsai, whose face was bruised, arrived and identified the suspects by their faces. The entire ordeal ended by 8:20 p.m.

UCPD would not comment on or confirm the robbery.

Holt, whose actions helped catch the two suspects, said he was trying to help his friends.

“I’ve never heard they actually caught the person who did it, and I saw the two guys there and thought I’d see if I could follow these guys and just help out,” Holt said.

Belkin and Holt were not injured.

Belkin blamed poor lighting and not enough emergency blue lights for some of the events of the night.

“I couldn’t find a blue light, and I couldn’t find security patrol,” Belkin said. The lighting is bad: They came out of the shadows, and they were wearing dark clothes. We’re so close to campus it’s ridiculous.”

While some students say that they continue to feel as safe as ever, others say they are more fearful.

“I feel pretty safe. I see the Wash. U. police patrol around the neighborhood pretty regularly, especially at night,” said Daniel Garcia, a junior who lives in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood. “It’s nice to bike home at night and more often than not I see a Wash. U. Campus Security SUV somewhere in the neighborhood.”

Junior Lisa Miller expressed the opposite sentiment.

“I used to feel pretty safe last year on and off campus,” Miller said. “I know you’re not supposed to, but I have walked at home by myself from off campus back onto campus, but now I don’t feel safe anywhere off campus after 7 or 8 p.m., when it starts to get dark.”

Washington University Police Chief Don Strom said he is confident that most students feel safe. Regarding some students’ concerns about safety, Strom said that students “should take advantage of” various security services that are available at no expense but are not used by many students.

Among colleges in the region, Washington University has the strongest safety system, Strom said. It is uncommon for a college to have a full-time police department, an extensive closed-circuit television system, an individual escort service and a direct shuttle from campus, all of which the University provides.

Students can choose whether to use the service, but Strom said that students should note that previous crimes might not have happened if the victims utilized campus security services.

Though the latest crime was robbery at gunpoint, the most frequent crimes are “crimes of opportunity,” according to Strom. These are crimes caused by a student’s lack of awareness, such as propping open doors or leaving private properties unattended. According to Strom, with a little bit of attention, these crimes will be reduced significantly.

According to latest statistics the University submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, there were five off-campus robberies in 2008, nine in 2007, and six in 2006.

Strom stressed that safety is a “shared responsibility.” All students, faculty members, staff and campus police should have the awareness of safety issues and work together to maintain it.

Freshman Eli Madden said he is aware of the risk of living in a metropolitan area.

“This is a city, so people have to be careful,” Madden said. “On campus, though, I haven’t felt any less safe since that incident.”

Ackert Walkway Avenue is a direct path from campus to the Loop that many students do not consider to be safe.

Strom said that there is a security patrol 24 hours a day and lighting can also be added in that area if it is needed, based on an annual campus security tour.

With additional reporting by Puneet Kollipara.

Effective immediately, the shuttle will operate from 7 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. from the Mallinckrodt Center and Brookings Drive stops. This is the second addition to Campus2Home service in the past 48 hours, as the rape of a student south of campus early Monday morning necessitated the expansion of shuttle service to areas south of campus as well.

The robbery occurred at around 1:50 a.m. Wednesday morning, when the two victims were approached by an individual displaying a handgun. The suspect asked for the cash of each victim, and after the students surrendered the money, the suspect fled the scene. Neither student was physically harmed throughout the ordeal.

Police described the suspect as a black male in his 20s or 30s, approximately 5 feet 9 inches in height and weighing 165 pounds. At the time of the robbery, the suspect was wearing a navy blue hoodie, possibly navy blue sweat pants, and a blue/grey mask covering his nose and mouth.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact University City Police, who can be reached at (314) 505-8652. University City and Wash. U. Police will also increase joint patrols of the area.

According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the victim was walking south on Skinker Boulevard near Northwood Avenue around 12:30 a.m. on Monday when an unknown suspect overtook her from behind.

The assailant, who was not known to the student, forced her between two buildings and raped her. During the incident, the attacker indicated that he had a knife but did not display it.

After the rape, the suspect took money from the victim and fled the scene. Because the attack occurred off-campus, the investigation is in the jurisdiction of St. Louis Metropolitan Police, not Washington University Police.

The victim was treated at a local hospital and, according to Associate Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Steve Givens, released Monday afternoon.

“Obviously we’re very concerned about her and helping her get through this situation, so we’ve reached out to her and her family,” Givens said. “Her family is now here, and she’s released from the hospital and doing well. That’s a relief, but obviously we’ve offered her counseling or whatever she needs to help get her life back.”

On Monday morning, the University notified the campus community of the incident through a campus-wide e-mail and crime alert.

The decision to release alerts is made on a case-by-case basis; according to Steve Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations, the University issued an alert in this situation because “it involved a student and did occur in an area where we have a lot of University people living, both students and faculty,” so there was concern because the suspect remained at large.

Although the University’s e-mail to students described the incident as a sexual assault, a Metropolitan Police release specifically characterized the incident as a rape, a particular type of sexual assault. As of this writing, police had not released any information about the crime beyond a description of the suspect and basic details of the victim’s report.

In the past, the DeMun neighborhood had not been associated with the same volume of crime reported north of campus, leading many students to believe that it is a safer neighborhood.

“Generally, [DeMun] seems really safe,” said Judson Kempton, a sophomore who lives in the area. “I wouldn’t expect that sort of thing to happen.”

Police described the suspect as a black male between 18 and 25 years of age, approximately 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 5 inches in height and weighing between 130 and 140 pounds. At the time of the assault, the suspect was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt over a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans and white gloves.

Police request that any person with information relevant to the incident contact Crime Stoppers at 1-866-371-8477.

Click here for additional coverage of the incident

This story differs from the print edition in the following way:
Due to a production error, two paragraphs were inadvertently omitted from this story. This version includes those two paragraphs.

Following the rape and robbery of a female undergraduate leaving campus, the University has expanded its door-to-door shuttle service for students living in off-campus housing.

Known as Campus2Home (C2H), the shuttle’s vans leave from Mallinckrodt Center and Brookings Drive every half-hour and take students directly to their residences off-campus rather than operating along a fixed route.

The University’s decision to expand the shuttle service was overshadowed on Monday by some students’ concerns that a reference to the Campus2Home program in the e-mail with the crime alert created the impression that the student raped early Monday morning was partially at fault for the attack.

Although the decision to expand Campus2Home was made at the same time that the University chose to send out a campus-wide alert, that e-mail did not include a reference to the expanded service.

Steve Givens, associate vice chancellor for public affairs, acknowledged that the decision to promote Campus2Home without mentioning the expansion was “a mistake,” but the additional coverage remains an important service to students.

“We included in the crime alert that Campus2Home was available; what we didn’t do is include that there was an expansion,” Givens said. “In the rush to get that statement out, it could have been worded better.”

Junior Danielle Wallis, co-president of the Committee Organized for Rape Education, stressed that references to the shuttle should not overwhelm the fact that the incident occurred because of choices made by the attacker, not the victim—a reality often overshadowed in mainstream understandings of sexual assault.

“It’s less an issue about how the crime alert was worded and more about how we read it,” she said. “There’s nothing blameful about what she did,” Wallis said.

Previously, the Campus2Home program was available only to students, faculty and staff living in neighborhoods north of campus—specifically University City and Skinker-DeBaliviere.

On Monday evening, shuttles began to serve neighborhoods south of campus, particularly the DeMun area where the assault occurred. The additional service is in direct response to that incident.

“We had a very tragic event,” Givens said, and that provided an impetus to reconsider how best to serve the needs of students.

“Something like this happens, and it’s good to reflect,” he said.

Campus2Home service is now available in the area between Forsyth Boulevard and Clayton Road, from Skinker to Big Bend, in addition to the neighborhoods north of campus that were previously available. In addition, after the robbery of two undergraduate students Wednesday morning on the Greenway Walkway just north of the campus overpass, the shuttle hours were extended from 7 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. seven days a week.

When the service first began in February, the University chose to focus its efforts on neighborhoods north of campus because of the concentration of students and University-owned off-campus property in the area.

Until now, the service has remained relatively unknown, operating far below its capacity. According to Steve Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations, approximately 20 students use the service each night and use has been approximately evenly divided between graduate and undergraduate students.

The service has the potential to serve up to 192 riders throughout each night—two 12 passenger vans make a total of 16 trips.

“[Ridership] is good, but we have capacity for lots more than that,” Givens said. “It’s great for students to learn that this is available and make use of it whether they are going north or south.”

Late Monday evening, the first night of expanded service, 43 individuals rode the shuttle, none traveling to the newly served area south of campus.

According to Hoffner, the yearly operating cost of the shuttle is $230,000, but even if ridership continues to lag behind capacity, the program will continue.

“My personal opinion is that now that we’ve started this program it’s going to be staying,” Hoffner said. “I don’t foresee at all that this won’t be available next fall.”

The service is scheduled to continue throughout the summer, though the University is currently conducting surveys that will determine whether a new set of summer hours will be developed.