Two Georgia Tech students were victims of strong armed and attempted strong armed robberies in a seven-hour period late Friday and early Saturday, campus police reported.
One student, a female, received minor injuries. The other, a male, was not hurt.
The assaults come as campus authorities continue to grapple with a spate of crimes targeting students, including one Monday when a student was beaten during a robbery.
Some Tech students have renewed an annual fight for the right to carry handguns on campus.
According the police, a female student said she’d parked near the Student Center on Ferst Drive and was walking toward the library around 11:30 p.m. Friday when she realized she’d left something in her vehicle.
When she returned to her vehicle and entered it, she found a man in the back seat. The student said the man hit her in the back of her head with his hand, pulled a lanyard around her neck and indicated he wanted her purse.
The female student pepper-sprayed the man, who then fled the vehicle with the student’s property.
Police said the student’s injuries did not require medical attention. The only description of the suspect provided was that he was a male.
In the second incident around 6:20 a.m. Saturday, a student said he was walking on Sixth Street when someone approached him from behind and grabbed his shoulder. The assailant tried to grab the student’s backpack but the student resisted and was able to run to his residence hall, police said.
The male student, who was not injured, said he did not see the person and was unable to provide police with a description.
On Monday, a Tech student was beaten and robbed while returning to his home just north of campus, Atlanta police said. The victim was walking from campus to his house on nearby Tumlin Street just after 2 a.m. when he was robbed at gunpoint by two men in the 400 block of 10th Street.
Earlier this week, some students renewed a call to be allowed to carry guns on campus. The Georgia Tech College Republicans presented their case on campus in partnership with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a pro-carry organization that has coordinated similar efforts at schools around the country.
University officials, however, want to keep the current law, which prohibits civilians from carrying a gun on the campus of any Georgia college or university. Students cannot legally keep firearms in their dorm rooms, although legislators changed the law last year to allow them to keep guns under lock and key in their vehicles.
In both incidents Friday and early Saturday, the Georgia Tech Police Department is urging anyone with information to call 404-894-2500 or by emailing crimetips@police.gatech.edu.
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