Student mugged at Leonardtown

A student was attacked outside his Old Leonardtown apartment Monday night by an assailant who stole his laptop computer, police said.

The robbery occurred just four days after two women were robbed by three men on Calvert Road. One of the women was punched and kicked by the men before they fled with one of the victims' purses, according to police.

In the Leonardtown incident, the 22-year-old student was using his laptop outside the 240 building of the Leonardtown apartment complex behind Fraternity Row at about 9:30 p.m. when a man "snatched [it] away," according to a crime alert sent Tuesday.

When the student resisted, police said, the suspect — described as a thin black man wearing dark clothing — punched him in the face and ran off with the laptop, joining a second man in nearby Lot 16 on Norwich Road. He dropped the laptop in the parking lot and fled toward Rhode Island Avenue, and the student was not injured, police said.

Investigators are reviewing that night's footage from nearby security cameras, but University Police spokesman Paul Dillon said police have not identified a suspect.

Junior psychology major Mallory Andrews, who lives in the 240 building, said she wasn't surprised by news of the crime.

"There's always really sketchy people around the area," Andrews said. "This part of campus, especially in the summer, is very uncomfortable."

Dillon said summer's reduced student population leaves residents more isolated and therefore more susceptible to attack, adding that residents should continue taking normal security precautions: remaining aware, notwalking alone and avoiding situations that would leave one vulnerable, such as working on a laptop outside at night.

Dillon also said reduced population does not translate to reduced police patrols.

"When there's more people around and there's more activity, it does make it less attractive for criminal activity," Dillon said. "But we haven't cut back."

He also said the attack was, like many other College Park robbery cases, a crime of opportunity — the suspect saw an opening and took it.

Another such crime happened last week, when three men confronted two women near Rhode Island Avenue just after midnight on June 18.

They demanded that the women — who were not students — hand over their purses, according to a crime alert sent out last Friday evening by University Police. When one of the women refused to give the attackers her bag, she was punched and kicked to the ground, the alert said.

When the other woman threw her purse at the men, they took the purse and ran toward Rhode Island Avenue. A spokesman for the Prince George's County Police, which is investigating the crime, said he did not have further details readily available.

Police described the three suspects in the attack as black men, two of them about 5 feet 5 inches tall, 140 pounds and approximately 18 years old. Police said the third suspect was wearing a white shirt but said they had no further description.

Calvert Road is one of three roads specially flagged for the "Safe Corridors Initiative," a partnership between the city and university that has given it more blue-light phones, increased lighting and changes to landscaping, Dillon said.

The upgrades to Calvert Road, along with College and Rhode Island avenues, are intended to allow for safer passage between Route 1 and the College Park Metro Station, Dillon said. The city also intends to install security cameras in the area, he added.

But despite these measures and patrols by both University Police and Prince George's County Police, it's impossible to completely prevent crime, Dillon said, adding that the system was only designed "to improve the physical safety of several roads."

"You try to make it less appealable for criminals to act," Dillon said.

rabdill at umdbk dot com