Georgia Tech robberies continue: 2 students held up

Two Georgia Tech students were robbed early Sunday in the same area just off campus where another Tech student was shot during a robbery last month, Atlanta police said.

In the latest incident, Jim Kenney and Ryan Lorber were robbed on Hampton Street, about a block from where fellow student Patrick Whaley was shot on May 4, according to Atlanta police spokesman James Polite.

Kenney and Lorber told police that they were confronted by two men who jumped out of a black sport-utility vehicle while a third suspect remained inside the SUV.

Lorber was able to escape the gunmen, but Kenney, whose leg is in a cast, was not.

“I said, ‘I don’t want any trouble,’” Kenney told WSB radio. “So I laid down, emptied my pockets and he grabbed everything I’d emptied out.”

The suspects took Kenney’s glasses and Blackberry, Polite said.

Polite described the suspects as three black males, one about 6 feet tall, wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and a red bandanna over his face.

The second suspect was also about 6 feet tall, wearing a striped shirt with a collar, and with “shorter dreads,” Polite said. The third suspect never got out of the SUV, which Polite said had a broken tail light on the driver’s side.

Neither Kenney nor Lorber was injured in the incident.

That wasn’t the case on May 4, when Whaley was shot during a robbery in the parking garage of the Tivoli Tenside Apartments at 1000 Nothside Drive.

The thieves in that incident were rummaging through Whaley’s pockets when a couple walked out of the elevator and interrupted the robbery.

The suspects forced the couple to the ground and took their credit cards, $280 in cash, cellphones and car keys.

They then tried to force Whaley into a van, police said. He was climbing in when another suspect approached and fired a shot.

The bullet entered Whaley’s chest and went out his back. As Whaley fell to the ground, two of the suspects fled in the couple’s Audi, while the third left in the suspects’ gold van, police said.

Earlier that same day, a Georgia State University student was kidnapped and later shot in the leg during a robbery that began about a half-mile from where Whaley was shot.

Carsten Singh, a 22-year-old senior at Georgia State, was visiting his girlfriend at her apartment on 16th Street near Northside Drive when he was approached by three armed men.

The men forced Singh into a van and drove him around for about 45 minutes while one of the them withdrew money from Singh’s bank account.

Singh was then released on a dead-end street in West End. One of the suspects fired a shot that hit Singh in the leg.

On May 25, three Georgia Tech students were robbed at gunpoint while sitting on the porch of a home in the 1000 block of Hemphill Avenue, in the Home Park neighborhood about two blocks north of the Tech campus.

Whitney Smith, a 21-year-old senior from San Diego ,who is currently living off-campus, said Monday that she knows of other crimes against students that have not been reported by the media.

“Not all the robberies that happen get reported to us students,” Smith said. “Somebody I know recently got their laptop stolen in the library, and another friend of a friend got robbed at the apartments that I lived in for the past two years, on campus, going to his car, and this was another armed robbery.”

Smith said she fears for the students who have not heard about all the robberies, “because I only found out about those incidents through friends. I wish [Tech officials] would tell people about more of the things that go on.”

She said the robberies have caused her to alter her routine, especially at night.

“I think at nighttime, I’ll be sure to park on campus as much as possible, and if my car’s parked far away from where I’m at, I’m going to make sure somebody is walking with me. I do not walk alone at night,” Smith said.

Joe Maxwell, a 17-year-old freshman from Darien, said that while he had not heard about the weekend robbery, school officials were “constantly preaching safety” during his recent orientation.

“They say stay with another person if you have to go out at night for some reason, and if you feel uncomfortable going out at night, always make sure you call the shuttle and use common sense,” said Maxwell, who is attending the second summer session at Tech, which began Monday.

“This is an open campus,” he said. “There aren’t fortified walls, and people have access to it from all walks of life, including criminals.”

Georgia Tech spokesman Matt Nagel said a crime alert was sent out by e-mail on Sunday, “notifying our students to be extra careful and be aware of their surroundings.”

Nagel said that while Georgia Tech police officers occasionally pass through the area where the most recent robbery took place, patrolling the area “falls more to Atlanta police.”

Staff photographer John Spink contributed to this article.