Armed Robbers Hold Up Graduate Students Near Yard

A male graduate student was robbed at gunpoint half a mile east of Harvard Yard early Saturday morning, said Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) spokesman Steven G. Catalano in a community advisory issued later the same day.

The student and a male non-affiliate walking with him were approached by two unidentified individuals at the corner of Broadway and Highland Avenue.

One of the offenders drew a firearm and demanded money and cell phones from the victims, according to the advisory. Both complied and they were not injured.

The armed robbery came just eight days after a similar incident in which two graduate students were robbed at the corner of Cambridge and Trowbridge Streets.

Because neither incident happened on University property, they are both being investigated by the Cambridge Police Department (CPD).

Both cases involved two offenders, one of whom wielded a gun, and both happened on weekend nights within five blocks of each other.

According to CPD spokesman Frank T. Pasquarello, though, the similarities stop there.

“We have these armed robberies all the time,” he said. “These were separate crimes.”

The police have made little progress in tracking the perpetrators. In both cases, the victims were unable to provide detailed descriptions of their attackers, which Pasquarello said was not uncommon for robberies of this sort.

“When [the victims] come forward, it is difficult to find these guys,” he said. “[The robbers] drive away or disappear into a building. They disappear pretty quick—as of now we have not been able to get any solid leads.”

But CPD is hopeful that more information will surface in the days to come.

“The description provided at the time was not something we can put together and say for sure that that was the suspect,” Pasquarello said. “Sometimes two days later, something happens and [the victims] will be able to remember more.”

Though both cases involved affiliates, and happened in close proximity to the Yard, neither HUPD nor CPD think attackers are singling out the campus population.

“The Harvard community should not feel particularly at risk and there is no reason to believe that they are being targeted,” said Pasquarello.

He also emphasized the cooperation that exists on a day to day basis between the departments.

“We share all information with HUPD—we have a very good rapport,” he said. “It does not make a difference if it is a Harvard student or not, we still work very hard on it.”

—Staff writer Noah S. Bloom can be reached at nsbloom@fas.harvard.edu.