« on: August 27, 2008, 11:34:34 AM »
So which player do you guys think it was this time?
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080827/NEWS/808260197/1007/NEWS02&title=Patrols_increased_around_UA_campusPatrols increased around UA campus
Four robberies have been reported in area since classes resumed
By Stephanie Taylor Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 11:32 p.m.
TUSCALOOSA | University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa police have stepped up their patrols on campus and the surrounding area after armed robberies Friday and Saturday night.
There have been four robberies reported on campus and in the fringe area since students began returning to school in mid-August. (a week and a half ago)
The most recent incident occurred just off campus in the 600 block of 11th Street, near UA’s Thomas-Drew football practice field.
Two people, neither of them college students, told Tuscaloosa police that they were approached by a man with a pistol in that block on the western edge of campus. The robber took a cell phone from one of the men before running south toward 15th Street.
The day before, a student reported that he was robbed at 1:40 a.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Riverside East dormitories on campus. He said the man was armed with a pistol and stole his wallet from him before running south through the parking lot. The victim’s wallet was recovered, although the money was missing, said UA spokesman Chris Bryant. Police are unsure whether the robberies were related.
On Aug. 17, two women were walking on Colonial Drive, one of two streets that make up Sorority Row, near Harris Hall when a man armed with a pistol approached and took money from one of them. Shortly after, a student reported that an armed man approached him on the Quad, near the intersection of Sorority Row and University Boulevard, and stole money from him.
Police responded and apprehended Deremi Rashawn Prince a short distance from the reported robberies, according to the advisory UAPD posted around campus and on the university’s Web site. Prince was still in the Tuscaloosa County Jail on Tuesday, held on three counts of first-degree robbery with bail set at $300,000.
No one was injured in any of the robberies.
On Sunday afternoon, UAPD officers responded to Bryant Hall after a student found a bullet in a dorm room near a bullet hole. Bryant Hall is home to many student-athletes, though it is not specifically an athletic dorm.
Police found a shell casing in the room next door and charged Melvin John Williams, 19, with reckless endangerment. Bryant said Williams is not a student and was visiting friends in the dorm. He is suspected of firing the gun between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. Sunday. No one was injured.
Bryant declined to name the students Williams was visiting because no one else has been charged.
UAPD referred all calls about the robberies to the school’s university relations department.
“One of our highest priorities at the University of Alabama is the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff,” said Deborah Lane, assistant vice president for university relations, in a statement. “UA employs a three-pronged approach to student well-being based on education, environment and enforcement.”
Tuscaloosa Police Chief Ken Swindle said officers have been working to decrease crime in the areas surrounding campus.
“We’ve always had a good working relationship with the university, but right now it’s the best it ever has been,” he said. “We’ve seen a drastic decrease since the university and city police have been working so close together.”
His uniformed and plain-clothed officers work from a substation on the Strip and regularly patrol the night spots and surrounding residential area on bicycles, on foot and in marked and unmarked cars, he said.
Reach Stephanie Taylor at
stephanie.taylor@tuscaloosa
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