Two Armed Robberies Hit Campus

Two Harvard graduate students were robbed at knife point in separate incidents last night and Wednesday evening.

In the incident last night, two suspects robbed a graduate student of approximately $200 in cash and a cellular phone on Banks Street, which runs past Mather House, around 9:25 p.m.

The earlier incident occurred when two men armed with a knife robbed a male graduate student of his cash while he was walking near Harvard Law School at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday evening.

There were no injuries in either incident.

No further information about the Banks Street robbery was available late last night.

The student in the Wendell Street incident “was approached by two suspects who demanded his money,” said Steven G. Catalano, spokesman for Harvard University Police Department (HUPD). “The victim handed over the wallet, the suspects then took the money out of the wallet and fled.”

The victim, a student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) reported the incident to Cambridge Police Department (CPD) yesterday morning.

The victim identified the first suspect as a “chubby” Asian male who is approximately 20 years old, weighs 200 pounds, and stands 5’7’’ tall. The suspect has short, dark hair and was wearing a dark raincoat.

The second suspect is a white male of about the same age—weighing 165 pounds and standing 5’8’’ tall—wearing a dark raincoat and a red scarf wrapped around his face. The victim described both assailants as nervous.

The crime occurred on Wendell Street, which is adjacent to the Law School’s North Hall, near Lesley College and a residential community.

“The law school has a dorm right there,” Catalano said. “It’s not uncommon for grad students to be walking through the area.”

Amity M. Wilczek, a former graduate student, said many graduate students walk down Wendell Street to eat at Boca Grande, a restaurant on Mass Ave.

“This is one of the main ways to get from north campus, where most science grads are, to most restaurants,” Wilczek said.

Aeri Shin, a third year GSAS student who lives on Wendell Street, said that her apartment building houses many graduate students from both GSAS and the Law School.

“I always felt that this area was pretty safe,” Shin said.

HUPD released a crime-alert yesterday to the e-mail inboxes of all Harvard students, encouraging “victims to report incidents as soon as possible after they occur.”

“We will be increasing both our uniformed and plainclothes patrol of the area,” Catalano said.

—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu.