Tech students victimized by crime this month

By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

On Thursday morning, Tech freshman Zhao Wang was stabbed, though not seriously wounded, as he made a pre-dawn run to the grocery store. Five days earlier two students were robbed at gunpoint while walking along North Avenue.

They weren't the only Tech students to be touched by crime since the first of the month. On Dec. 2, at least four undergrads were robbed in their Home Park apartment just off-campus.

The latest incidents have followed a familiar pattern this year around the Georgia Tech campus. Crime seemed to peak in the spring, when five Tech students were robbed at gunpoint over a two-week period.

Four arrests were made in conjunction with the muggings early last summer, leading outgoing Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington to note there had been no attacks since the arrests.

But then, less than a month later, two separate muggings occurred within 24 hours at the same downtown intersection just south of campus. And within nine days in early October four students were robbed in separate Home Park stick-ups.

None of the students were seriously injured in the crimes detailed above, but the campus was shaken. “I think [the students] have become easy targets for some of the criminals," Pennington acknowledged at an Oct. 13 press conference announcing a new strategy to combat off-campus crime.

Eight uniformed officers were assigned to keep watch over the neighborhoods near Tech and the Atlanta University Center from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. nightly. The officers were joined by an undisclosed number of undercover police, Pennington said.

The result? Zone 5 Commander Khirus Williams said that, despite the incidents this month,the APD's plan has worked. The street crimes that have occurred took place when the extra patrols had yet to hit the streets, Williams said.

What his zone needs is more overtime pay, more officers --  or both, he said.

"We need more ears and eyes out there," he said. "But even more importantly, we need our citizens to govern themselves responsibly and not let themselves become victims."

No Tech officials were made available for comment.  On campus, at least, there's been a reduction in every crime major category from 2008, according to figures released by the university police.

"We feel safe in our little bubble here," said freshman Hannah Olliff. But off-campus, said junior Laura Schulte, "It's a little sketchy."

Staff writer Steve Visser contributed to this report