Student fends off mugger Saturday

When a student was attacked by a man demanding his wallet at University Courtyards early Saturday morning, he surprised the assailant by fighting back and effectively ended the attempted robbery.

The student was traveling from a party in Courtyards Building 6 to find his designated driver in Building 7 at 2:30 a.m. and noticed a man standing under a pavilion. The man followed him up the stairwell of Building 7, pushed him down the stairs and demanded he hand over his wallet, the victim said.

Instead of surrendering his property, the student, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns, tried to hit the suspect and screamed for help. The attacker left shortly thereafter, and students waiting at a nearby bus stop came to help the victim.

The student, who said he was intoxicated at the time, said he suffered minor scrapes and bruises to his back, ankle and face, but retained his wallet and personal items.

The crime shocked Courtyards residents who said they don't hear about much crime in the relatively secluded, brightly lit neighborhood tucked away from Route 1 and across University Boulevard.

"It's really alarming - it happened only about 15 steps from our apartment," senior theater major Jackie Littman said. "Everyone tells you not to walk alone at night, but you'd think it wouldn't be a problem to walk from one building to another. Apparently it is."

The student victim said he would not tell anyone else in a similar situation to take on their attacker.

"I would never advise fighting back like I did," he said. "You never know who has a weapon. I would approach the entire situation differently [if it happened again]."

University Police spokesman Paul Dillon echoed the student's sentiments, although he said the police do not judge his actions.

"We recommend you give up your property," he said. "But in this case, it was a personal decision made in a split second. We aren't going to criticize that."

The victim reported the suspect as a black male, about 5-foot-8 and 170 lb. wearing a dark-colored jacket with a "small face" and bushy eyebrows.

Dillon said police are investigating the incident and reviewing security camera footage.

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