Armed robberies near Emory spark campus warning

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two armed robberies near Emory University over the weekend have prompted warnings to the campus community.

"The locations were close enough that we wanted to alert you to exercise caution when in those areas, particularly after dark," stated the e-mail sent out Monday to students, staff and faculty.

Both robberies happened just outside the Emory's campus footprint, officials said, and follow a spate of highly publicized armed robberies at downtown Atlanta college campuses.

On Friday around midnight, a woman reported being robbed at gunpoint on the sidewalk in the 1400 block of North Decatur Road near the Oakdale Road intersection, officials said.

The woman wasn't harmed, but her purse was stolen by two men, she told police.

On Sunday, around 9 p.m., an Emory student reported being robbed at gunpoint in front of her apartment building at Clairmont Reserve Apartments in the 1500 block of Clairmont Road near the school's Clairmont Campus, authorities said.

This woman's purse also was stolen, though she was unharmed, authorities said.

She wasn't able to get a description of her assailant, and that the suspect got away in a red, two-door vehicle, according to campus officials.

The two men described from the Friday-night robbery were said to be a 6-foot-4-inch, 170-pound black man in his 30s wearing a green shirt and light-colored pants; and a 6-foot black man in light-colored jeans, red-white-and-blue-striped shirt, and a white skull cap with a blue stripe, authorities said.

DeKalb County police are investigating both incidents, police spokesman Officer Jason Gagnon said.

A check of the student-run university newspaper, the Emory Wheel, showed only one other armed robbery near campus this year while school was in session.

On March 27, Dusty's Barbecue, at 1815 Briarcliff Road, was robbed by a lone gun-wielding man demanding money, according to the newspaper.

Anyone with information on either of these robberies is asked to call the DeKalb Police Department at 770-724-7850.