<p>A man was robbed at gunpoint recently at Swarthmore. He was heading to his car in the parking lot between Mertz and Alice Paul dorms. He was approached by two men who had guns and robbed him of his wallet and other necessities. The police are in search of the men. The robbed man said that they were two black males.</p>
<p>Lesson: Swarthmore is generally safe, and these things rarely occur, but they have happened earlier this year and in previous years, still happen, and will happen.</p>
<p>Now I feel a bit uncomfortable because I live in Mertz, close to where the robbery took place.</p>
<p>dchow, sharing information is good. You’re understandably concerned about this, but it’s important to be clear when your intent is to help. When you say something such as, “these things rarely occur but they have happened earlier this year,” you’re moving from relating an incident to something much more vague and less helpful. I don’t believe there have been other incidents involving guns on campus this year, have there?</p>
<p>To my knowledge, there have been no other incidents involving guns on campus this year. With the exception of the weird car incident last year, nothing this alarming has happened in my 4 years here. Public Safety is very good about getting notices out when things happen, so if there had been other events like this, I am sure we would have been told.</p>
<p>This has all the earmarks of a “what’s the rest of the story” kind of deal. For example, did the alleged attackers know the alleged victim? What was the alleged victim really doing at Swarthmore? The library story sounds a bit far-fetched.</p>
<p>A random mugging at noon between the library and the Bond parking lot defies logic. What? Two armed robbers are going to hide on the benches underneath the cherry trees behind Mertz and wait all day for a college student to rob ($3 bucks and an iPod?) in broad daylight, next to the campus security office? Come on. Who cooks up a scheme like that?</p>
<p>My guess? The alleged victim had just made a marijuana delivery, followed by a couple of his “buddies” who relieved him of the proceeds.</p>
<p>it sounds like it was on Mertz Field, which is admittedly not very well-lit (and muddy - poor choice to walk across there yesterday for anyone, given that it was raining the whole day, but I digress). The “where’s the money” line begs a few questions, as well, c.f. interesteddad’s comment, what with its semantic entailment that there exists some sum of money x. Okay, back to honors papers, haha.</p>
<p>But for the record, I don’t feel unsafe as a student here.</p>
<p>That doesn’t add up with the alleged library story either. There are well-lighted paved pathways from the front door of the library all the way to Bond parking lot. There is absolutely no reason to be on Macgill Walk or cutting across Mertz Field.</p>
<p>actually, who knows. there are three different locations cited in different reports, including ‘the large field between Alice Paul and Mertz’ which…doesn’t exist as such? I extrapolated the Mertz Field bit because Magill Walk was mentioned elsewhere.
Okay, no more speculating from me.</p>
<p>No, your speculation makes perfect sense. The Mertz frisbee field is the only “field” that even remotely fits the description.</p>
<p>Maybe the alleged robbery occured on the green roof of the New New Dorm? That would make about as much sense as the accounts that have surfaced so far!</p>
<p>I don’t think the alleged victim was ever in the Swarthmore library. I think the accounts are muddled because the alleged victim didn’t want to say what he was really doing at Swarthmore or why the alleged perps had any reason on earth to suspect he had money.</p>
<p>BTW, the last incident at Swarthmore was a pot deal. The guys delivering the goods to a dorm room opted instead to simply take the student’s money instead.</p>
<p>These things happen elsewhere, too, unfortunately. There were two armed robbery incidents near F&M in the past week:</p>
<p>Two Franklin & Marshall College students were robbed at gunpoint Friday night near the campus, city police and college officials said.</p>
<p>A man in his 20s brandished a gun and took money from one of the two students during the holdup, which occurred about 11 p.m. in the 800 block of Race Avenue near Ross Street, police said.</p>
<p>My relations went to the University of Chicago. They were robbing students and mugging faculty over thirty years ago. The entire Divinity Department left for Yale after the Dean of that Department had a beating with bats by some blaggards. Today UC has the largest armed campus police department in the country. Why even students were hit up for coin to subsidize the inequalities of social stature. </p>
<p>My friend is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been robbed every year. Her laptop and possessions were taken and her room broken into on campus housing over the last three years. Her family was coerced into having homeowners insurance to cover for such incidences in order to mitigate her expenses. At several schools in NYC students have buttons to push in the stalls of their bathrooms to alert security. Well if you cannot sit down in peace and quiet and do your thing, I guess that answers quite a few questions about the risk associated with safety and of discharging one’s duty.</p>
<p>This is why when i made application to prospective schools safety was a big issue. Taking safety into account would cancel out many an important college, so one reluctantly has to balance safety with prudence towards having a safe experience in making one’s college choices, and how to address potential incidences, and more importantly, how to react to them.</p>
<p>Making inductions as to the robbers’ intent and placing the blame on the student for smoking some drug is a bit of a stretch to say the least and does not excuse the brutal act. </p>
<p>Perhaps you need to revise your defensive views of Swarthmore by de-leveraging the student’s account. Is one guilty until one proves one’s innocence? This is un-American.</p>
<p>Neither daylight nor darkness defers reprehensible acts of violence against one’s person. Only a great civilization with a population manifesting a high social development can deter such behavior. If we continue to encourage the culture to decline, then incivility shall overcome whatever programs are put in place.</p>
<p>HorseRadish,
Robberies definitely occur on college campuses. But Penn and UChicago are both in cities, with gigantic populations, both of students and of outsiders. I think you misunderstand how very unusual this is in Swarthmore, since it is tiny, secluded, and generally incredibly safe.</p>
<p>I was on the Swarthmore campus this past weekend and as I understand the story, the police believe that two young guys took the train from Philly to Swarthmore and came onto the campus near midnight with the intent of robbing someone. As my daughter (a student) says: if they think Swarthmore students are a bunch of rich kids who carry lots of money and wear expensive bling, they were probably very disappointed. Calculators and cell phones are about it. The person robbed was visiting from Villanova and was robbed between two dorms that are relatively close to the train station. The suspects were last seen heading back to the train station. Anyone who has visited the Swarthmore campus will know that the particular tactic these guys used (strike close to the only side of campus that has open access, a train, and streets leading directly to major highways) is about the only one that would work. Everyone recognizes everyone on the campus. If the guys had spent another 10 minutes on campus prior to the robbery, they probably would have been detected and questioned. It is small campus with occupied buildings in sight/sound of all. It is bounded by a small woods on one side, dense residential housing with circuitous narrow streets on another, and the village of Swarthmore and train tracks at the edge. This is not prime real estate for persons looking to rob others and make fast getaways, which is a key reason why robberies are extraordinarily rare on campus.</p>