A female student was the victim of strong-arm robbery Thursday afternoon while walking to class inside a UC Berkeley campus building.
At 2:28 p.m., the female student was walking along the first floor of LeConte Hall when the suspect allegedly removed a cellphone from her hand by force while the victim tried holding on to her phone, according to UCPD spokesperson Capt. Margo Bennett. The suspect then left the area, according to police.
The victim was not injured during the encounter. UCPD was alerted of the incident by the victim but was unable to locate the suspect.
The victim activated the GPS on her stolen phone, and it was determined that the cellphone was likely on a BART train due to the device’s rapid movement, according to Bennett. BART Police also assisted in searching for the suspect but were unable to locate him.
“While it is disturbing that this occurred in one of our buildings, one incident cannot be a predictor that other daytime crimes will occur,” Bennett said.
According to the UCPD crime alert, the suspect is described as:
“A Black male, in his late teens or early twenties, dark complexion, approximately 5’ 6” tall, an Afro-style haircut with a flat top, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, a white t-shirt underneath and blue jeans.”
Chloe Hunt covers crime. Contact her at [email protected].
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Advice to Cal students: If you see a young black man on campus, turn around and run. Fast.
So much for an institution that supposedly takes its best and brightest.
I understand Berkeley is a public school, but assuming these black thugs don’t even pay taxes on their stolen goods, wondering if we can become a gate school. Really sick and tired of Oakland thugs coming and taking advantage of us students. Crime happening around campus is sickening, but crime happening within our campus, in our building is absurd…my bet is no one’s gonna do anything about it.
Black, white, Asian, Latino, who cares? What is important is the amount of crime in the UC Berkeley area. Bad to worse and nothing is being done about it. The cops would rather pepper spray students. They need to be more active because the crooks recently see that the police and the mayor do not care about crime.
Hate really isn’t a good way to address any problem; please exercise tolerance while doing your best to keep yourselves and others safe, and organize to encourage the administration to take definitive action in protecting the campus. In the meantime, please try to keep your smartphones out of sight on your walking commutes home, keep mace handy, and be watchful and aware of your surroundings. Additionally, having headphones in decreases your ability to be aware of who and what is around you. Walking with the sounds of the world in your ears really isn’t a bad gig, anyhow, and it might just save you in a bad spot while Berkeley works through this difficult time.
This is so disturbing on a number of levels. No student should ever fear for their safety on their way to lecture (INSIDE a building, no less) in the middle of the day. In light of this and the other recent robberies I would not at all be against an increased police presence on and around campus. While everyone should take common sense steps for their safety, this is just ridiculous.
Chancellor Birgeneau, you’re the man in charge until year end so how are you going to play this one out? A Black thug has infiltrated your house, LeConte, where you still research physics and where you still have many colleagues questioning just how safe this bastion of knowledge really is. We can celebrate the discovery of the Higgs boson and string theory but if we can’t protect our own house then how much progress have we really made? You could pretend race is irrelevant and just issue platitudes about hiding cell phones. Or you could turn the UCPD loose and let them do what they’re here to do.
I am disgusted by the black predators from Oakland roaming all of the Berkeley targeting naive students. But how would you propose that Birgeneau would be able to “turn the UCPD loose and let them do what they’re here to do”? BAMN, the ACLU, and the politically correct idiots would be filing lawsuits that would drain the UC of its coffers. Idiot liberals.
Really ? Inside a lecture hall ?
I wish this punk would have tried to mess with me, i’d have kicked his ass good ( am an ex-army man with 2 tours of combat duty in iraq).
Let’s have a greater police presence on campus especially to deal with “suspicious” persons (like it or not , black males on campus are very highly likely to be criminals , no matter what berkeley liberals might want to say, it’s never nice to be on the side that gets mugged/shot)
Call me racist if you want, you know i am telling the truth here.
“I wish this punk would have tried to mess with me, i’d have kicked his
ass good ( am an ex-army man with 2 tours of combat duty in iraq)”
But you weren’t the one being “messed with”. And the victim was never in the army. And was not even a man. Good luck with your PTSD-related misdirected agression problems.
Which is the kind of overbearing comment that you just made about some student who got her cellphone stolen.
Your anti-military blathering is pathetic. You are deliberately distorting ConcernedCitizen’s comment. He is NOT blaming the poor victim; he just wished the black thug would have chosen a less vulnerable target, namely himself, so he could have smacked the hell out of that asshole. Try not to be a liberal sheep blinded by political correctness.
President Obama involved himself in the Florida shooting tragedy by saying “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”. Well, Mr. President, what do you have to say now? Berkeley seems to be plagued with Black strong-arm robbers this summer. We are a progressive city and would like to be color-blind, but we can’t continue to sacrifice our students in the name of political correctness. The Black thugs from Oakland and Richmond are not dumb. In fact, I give them high marks for being incredibly intelligent. They know they can roam around freely in Berkeley and no one in the pathologically progressive government or UC administration is going to do a thing to stop them.
Trayvon Martin was a criminal. Kudos to the man who shot him dead. Why can’t we defend ourselves anymore in this nation ?
Umm, because we live in society, not as a collection of armed gangs?
I realize you’re just trolling to get a rise out of people, but come on. Your comment was the silliest, most un-American thing I’ve seen in a long time.
ever heard of the 2nd amendment Mr. Westby ?
For God’s sake, of course I have! Carry all the guns you want! The poster above was advocating murdering a young man because he was walking in the wrong neighborhood. I cannot imagine a less American sentiment than that. Anyone who thinks such a suggestion is proper is a disgusting human being.
Clearly this forum has been overrun by a small, determined cadre of psycopaths. The funny thing is that none of you have the stones to use your real names. Cowards.
Unfortunately for Trayvon Martin, he was shot by George Zimmerman after breaking Zimmerman’s nose and slamming his head into the pavement.
Did he deserve to die? No, his punishment should have been a stay in juvie hall. But what did Trayvon Martin expect when he attacked a grown man who wasn’t afraid of exercising his Second Amendment rights?
So is this the Daily Cal or did I stumble upon the KKK website? Moderators PLEASE take down the racist filth here. If the DC doesn’t, we can only assume that DC editors sympathize with this crap.
Everyone has a First Amendment right to post opinions. The Daily Cal is free from UC administration meddling and can do as it wishes. I give the DC editors high marks for being more fair and balanced this summer than at any point in its history. If you want to speak up in favor of the Black thugs robbing students be my guest.
Why, pray tell, are you so obsessed with the race of the criminal in question?
It appears that a small, determined cadre of hardcore racists has decided to post here in order to influence public opinion. Of course they’re all too cowardly to post using their real names. Pathetic.
[Why, pray tell, are you so obsessed with the race of the criminal in question?
You are either ignoring the facts or failing to pay attention to the crime statistics at Berkeley. Look at the Berkeley crime results from UCPD. Scroll through the entries http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2011/ and look at the suspect descriptions. What's common about 99.99% of them?
Let's look at the first five entries.
From http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2012/11-122911-80.htm:
The suspect is described as:
A Black male teenager wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, black pants, and riding a bicycle.
From http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2011/11-121411-79NC.htm:
The armed Suspect #1 was described by the victims as - "Black Male
Adult, 20-25, 6'0"-6'4", medium complexion, shaved or buzzed cut hair,
beanie cap, wearing dark clothing. “
Victim #2 described Suspect #2 as a “Black
Male, 20-25 years old, 5'-6', medium complexion, stocky build, wearing a
brown zip-up sweatshirt, baggy pants, dark colored scarf with knife in
his hands.”
Suspects #3 and 4 were described as "black male adults."
From http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2011/11-121011-78.htm:
The suspect is described as:
A Black male, 5’8” to 5’10” in height, 175 lbs.
with a skinny build, short dirty hair, brown eyes and smelled as if he
hadn’t bathed in a few days.
From http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2011/11-120511-77adv.htm:
There is no suspect description at this time.
From http://police.berkeley.edu/crimealerts/2011/11-120311-76NC.htm:
The suspect arrested is described as:
LEE, John Hee, an Asian male, 29 years of age.
Notice anything common among most of these entries? Blacks are statistically more likely than any other race to be criminals. That doesn't mean that MOST blacks are criminals. It just means that MOST criminals are blacks.
[Of course they're all too cowardly to post using their real names.]
Many commentators don’t want to be robbed or assaulted by the black thugs all too common in the Berkeley community so avoid publicizing their names and pictures. You, however, are all too eager to do so and have made yourself a prime target for robbery or assault by a black thug.
I want to understand your reasoning here: you’re suggesting that because I have posted using my real name, I will be targeted by “black thugs” for “robbery or assault”?
You, my friend, are living in a world of fear and misery. You are clearly terrified of black people. I feel sorry for you.
As a Berkeley resident, you would be an idiot if you did not avoid black thugs.
Whenever I see a suspicious person (usually black) at Berkeley, I try to avoid him by crossing the street. Better be safe than sorry.
of course .. it,s obvious unless your ” FEELIN LUCKY ” ….. …
THAT OLD SAYING ” THE TRUTH CAN HURT ” TOTALLY APPLIES HERE.. FACE FACTS LIBERAL BERKELEY …
It is because of people like you that we are in this situation. Race and other demographics are the source of many social and cultural issues in this country. Ignoring race has prevented us from addressing those social and cultural problems that continue to plague too many black neighborhoods in the US. If you find something in common with the vast majority of criminals in the city, you recognize it so you can start to address the problem directly instead of wasting time and money looking at the entire Berkeley population.
Wait, what? My social security number?! What did you do, just think of the most personal thing I could reveal, then demand I post it? It is patently obvious that it is braver of me to post using my real name than it is for you to hide behind your pseudonym. Then again, if I were posting the ultra-far-right fringe racist garbage you’re posting, I might be a coward like yourself.
Look, I understand your anger. No one likes street crime. Clearly it makes you you feel powerless. But let’s focus on policing methods that work well in other cities rather than devolve into this stupid finger-pointing based on race. America is better than that.
Tell us about these policing methods that have worked so well, and we will forget about helping out various non-white communities that are stuck in poverty and crime. Your America is better at being too cowardly to recognize that race is behind much of the disparity in this country, and that ignoring it will just keep it entrenched for decades to come. Of course, your background is in going to schools that are almost all white, so you have ignored black people your entire life. You don’t even know what is racist and what isn’t.
When I was a freshman a few years ago, I was returning to my dorm from the library at 2am after a night of studying for midterms. I made the mistake not crossing the street when I saw a black thug and several of his friends. When the black thug saw me, he stared at me and said, “You got spare change, son?” and lifted his fist high up in the air.
I was able to escape the dangerous situation safely, but never again will I be naive enough to treat black thugs like law-abiding citizens. The politically correct liberals would rather you stay on the same side of the street as the black thug and get robbed and assaulted rather than cross the street to be safe.
Well Mr Disgusted , you are a pathetic armchair liberal.
Get out there and see the real world for once.
You are very highly likely to get mugged by a black person walking down the road here than say an Asian or White person.
Hope you get mugged, it’s because of people like you who try and deliberately hinder the police’s efforts that UC Berkeley is so unsafe.
Your manufactured outrage is laughable, as is your obsessive focus on the amount of pigment in the perpetrators’ skin.
You liberals and your political correctness campaigns would be laughable if not for the fact that students and community members are getting harmed by the inaction of Chancellor Birgeneau and the Berkeley City Council.
this is so racist!!!
What is racist is that people like you ignore the social and cultural issues that have plagued too many black neighborhoods in the US. Because you want to pretend that race isn’t related to crime in the Berkeley area, you ignore the group that we should be trying to help. A thinking person would recognize that if there was something that most crime in Berkeley had in common, then we should address it so that we can reduce crime, and so that we can help the community affected. If we addressed this decades ago, we would probably have a much more prosperous black community, and there would be many more black students walking the halls of LeConte. If you want a better world, then you need to stop ignoring the world around you.
Yet plenty of Asians (especially those who came over from their country to the US with little to nothing) were able to move up the socio-economic ladder. Policies of liberal Democrats are definitely not the only reason there are more Asians than blacks are Berkeley. There are a myriad of reasons.
Let me tell you: None of the Asian students you see on campus is likely to be one of the “who came over with little to nothing.” And of course, they (collectively speaking) tend to do better for reasons–”working hard” alone is definitely not enough. What you need is probably a little bit more understanding of the U.S. immigration policy.
Another black crook from Oakland plaguing the Berkeley community.
Hey Guest, don’t you know it is the poor environs that force blacks to steal, assault and murder in percentages significantly greater than any other grouping? Yes, this overprivileged minority just can’t help its young people from becoming urban predators…
No, absolutely not. It’s the inherent tendency in blacks to steal and assault.