There were a couple of hold-ups last night after a party, one on Leforge and one near the Putnam meters, which I guess is on the extreme northwest part of campus (?). All the info after the “read more” part.
EMU Police Department Timely Warning to the Community – April 5, 2009
Reported Crime: Two Armed Robberies (One occurring in the City of Ypsilanti – Off Campus and the other occurring on Main Campus)
Location of the Crimes: 1) 1200 block of LeForge Road and 2) Putnam Meters
At approximately 1:30 a.m. on April 5, a group of five people including two EMU students left a party located in the 1200 block of Leforge Road when they were approached by two males brandishing semi-auto pistols. The group was advised to lie down on the ground and look in the other direction. The suspects went through the pockets of the victims taking cash, cellular phones, identification and jackets. The victims described the suspect(s) as follows:
Suspect #1: African American male, 6’0”, 190lbs, approx 20 years of age, wearing a dark hoodie with red strips and dark pants.
Suspect #2: African American male, 5’10”, 180lbs, approx 20 years of age, wearing a dark jacket and dark pants.
The second incident occurred at approximately 1:55 a.m. on April 5 near the Putnam Meters. This incident mirrored the Ypsilanti incident. In this incident a group of four male EMU students were walking home from the same party in the 1200 block of LeForge Road when they were approached in the same manner with the same results. It is believed that the suspects are the same in both incidents. Nobody was injured in either incident.
The EMU and Ypsilanti Police Departments are currently investigating these crimes. Anyone with any information on these crimes is asked to contact the EMU Police Department at 734-487-1222 or the Ypsilanti Police at 734-483-9510.
The EMU Police Department would like to remind the Community to:
• Keep doors locked at all times.
• Be aware of your surroundings and look assertive.
• Walk in groups with friends and/or coworkers when possible. Contact SEEUS for nighttime escorts at 734-487-3387.
• Trust your intuition. If a particular situation makes you feel uncomfortable, choose an alternative.
• Program the number for the EMU Police (734-487-1222) into your cell phone.
• If you feel threatened on campus, call the EMU Police for assistance or look for a blue light emergency or one of the blue emergency stations in the classroom buildings.
• If you see suspicious activity on campus, contact the EMU Police immediately.
• Check the EMU Public Safety website for additional safety tips:
http://www.emich.edu/publicsafety/policesafetytips.htm
Not to sound like I don’t support the police, but doesn’t the statement “walk in groups” not really fit in this situation. To me, it sounds like if you’re walking in a group, you’re an easier target. Instead of robbing five people, five different times, they can all just be robbed at once. Is that the definition of crime of opportunity?
All of this is madness and I hope the police are as successful on this case as they have been on all of the others they email us about.
I am getting fed up with all the crime around Ypsilanti and campus! A wise man once said a city has only the amount of crime it tolerates.
What can be done? Do I need to move away from Ypsi to live in a better community?
EMU Police Department Informational Release to the Campus Community – April 8, 2009
Armed Robbery – City of Ypsilanti (Off Campus)
The Ypsilanti Police Department is currently investigating an armed robbery that occurred on April 8, approximately 1:30 a.m. on Green Road in the City of Ypsilanti.
A pizza delivery man was approached and robbed by two males at an apartment complex located off of Green Road in the City of Ypsilanti. One of the suspects brandished a silver handgun and taken was cash, food, cellular phone and personal identification. The pizza driver was not harmed in the incident.
The victim described the first suspect as an African American male, 6’0”, medium build, medium complexion, approx. 20 years of age, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt. The second suspect was described as an African American male, 5’7”, medium build, light complexion, approx 20 years of age, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt with possible writing on the front – no further description was provided by the victim.
The Ypsilanti Police Department is currently investigating this crime. Anyone with any information on this crime is asked to contact the Ypsilanti Police Department at 734-483-9510.
The EMU Police Department would like to remind the Community to:
Keep doors locked at all times.
Be aware of your surroundings and look assertive.
Walk in groups with friends and/or coworkers when possible.
Contact SEEUS for nighttime escorts at 734-487-3387.
Trust your intuition. If a particular situation makes you feel uncomfortable, choose an alternative.
Program the number for the EMU Police (734-487-1222) into your cell phone.
If you feel threatened on campus, call the EMU Police for assistance or look for a blue light emergency or one of the blue emergency stations in the classroom buildings.
If you see suspicious activity on campus, contact the EMU Police immediately.
Check the EMU Public Safety website for additional safety tips:
http://www.emich.edu/publicsafety/policesafetytips.htm
I hate to burst anyone’s bubble that believes its going to get any better but lets face it summer time is about to begin and historically crime rates are far higher in the warmer months.
I work as a police officer and if you read the papers every day you’ll learn that crime is up everywhere.
It is important to remember that the police can only do so much. Ypsilanti has a population of around 25,000 with several more thousand living on campus and in the area that are not considered part of the city population. On a good night the city has a few officers working and the campus has a few, it is unrealistic to belive that 6 or 7 police officers are going to be able to stop the crime.
If anything we should be asking our University and Community to support hiring more officers, but that would mean higher taxes or tuition and lets face it in this economy who has the money for either.
I’ve read that people believe the police should spend more time in the area north of campus. Well that is a good idea and as someone who drives that way down huron I see campus officers and YPD all the time, not to mention the Washtenaw deputies who patrol Superior Township.
It is going to be a long summer and before we start blaming the police we should blame the economy, the governor, the auto industry and about a million other reason why crime is sky rocketing.
BTW as an EMU grad I always like to point out that if you check the crime statistics for EMU VS. UofM for almost every category EMU has less crime. Just something to think about the next time people are tearing down Ypsilanti.
Good Luck Stay safe
One of the concerns I hear from parents about sending their kids to Eastern is the crime situation around and near campus. Eastern needs to work with the city of Ypsilanti to work on a better overall plan for solving this issue and engaging the community. We can send out all the alerts we want to but that is like looking in the review mirror. The Prez says she wants to do a better job in this area but if sending out crime alerts is the answer we have a long way to go. Ypsi has a terrible image on this issue.
Does anybody know if these latest crimes are actually a rise in activity? I wonder if a causal factor of EMU’s poor image is simply that EMU is now so publicly announcing the crime statistics of the surrounding area.
Let us not forget that the reason why these reports are being released is because EMU severely under-reported crime information as became apparent in the investigation after the Laura Dickinson murder.
Second, it would appear that the police are taking a “bite out of crime,” so to speak. I meant to lost this the other day, but here it is now: One suspect arrested, another remains at large in two armed robberies near Eastern Michigan University campus.
I hadn’t forgotten the cover-up, nor am I calling crime reporting bad. I am just wondering if EMU advertising crimes not even on campus might contribute to the poor image. If the crime numbers haven’t really changed, but the notification has, then maybe the notification did something.
I agree with sitedad on this one: the reason (main) we are hearing more is that we are in compliance with our reporting.. the perception is that more crime is out there when we simply weren’t reporting it in previous years..
Sad but true..
I do think that iihs raises a good point though: what’s the border for this stuff? I’ve seen some examples of crimes reported to the campus community via the EMU police that really had nothing to do with campus, other than the crime happened in Ypsilanti. To me, that really shouldn’t count anymore than the crime that happens in Ann Arbor or Detroit, two cities where many EMU students, staff, and faculty live.
I think that most of the DPS alerts about off campus crimes pertain to crimes in areas very close to campus. This is the right choice – disclose everything, and drop any pretense that criminals respect property boundaries between town and campus.
The geography of crime in Ypsi is very distinctive. Most violent crimes are concentrated in a few small areas, and to a narrow range of time of day. Unfortunately, the ill considered decisions of city leaders and now-departed, unlamented EMU leaders, to push for fewer student residents in the area just south of campus, and more in the huge apartment complexes north of campus, have been detrimental to the goal of creating safe neighborhoods. The area south of campus – EMU’s natural residential university district – is losing population, making landlords willing to rent to anyone, and the apartment complexs north of campus have many of the characteristics that draw street criminals.
That said, Ypsilanti’s crime problems are far less than their are perceived to be, relative to the society as a whole.
I totally feel like the amount of reporting has went up due to the previous violation of the Cleary Act. But I disagree that reporting crimes in Ypsilanti is like Ann Arbor or Detroit for one main reason: the College of Business. Even if the University’s dreams came true and everyone lived on campus, those at the COB are still heading to Downtown Ypsi for class. Its not like the University is reporting about crimes that are happening 3 miles down on Michigan Ave…they’re reporting on crimes in Ypsilanti that directly impact EMU. Even if U of M crime stats are higher…Ypsi has a much more serious safety issue. U of M has almost double the enrollment, and who knows how big their campus is compared to ours. And from my understanding, the pizza delivery crime and the first of the two post party robberies aren’t counted as EMU crimes since they didn’t happen on campus. When I was in school, I knew of 3 girls who were raped in the same semester, yet the crime reports showed zero! These girls were living no more than 1 mile off campus yet it wasn’t counted as an EMU crime. In all honesty, I live and work in Ypsi and I love it here. It has become my home…but we have a serious safety issue.
I think there is a difference in Cleary between making students aware of crimes that occur close to campus and actually reporting the crime in our statistics. For crimes that occur directly off campus ie: LaForge Rd, there is a “imminent danger” to the campus and community, that’s why we get the email. However, the crime wouldn’t be counted on our Cleary statistics unless it was on campus ie: the robbery at the Putnam Meters.
If I remember correctly, we have received emails about crimes that happen close to the COB. Bil, unfortunately, the girls who were raped would not warrant an alert, because they didn’t live right across the street from campus.
I think you guys should actually check the stats and how things area reported. So far I don’t see any facts proving one thing or another in regard to Ypsilant vs Ann Arbor. Ypsilanti has always been portrayed as the crime ridden step child going back almost 40 years.
Two more items: If you check the crime reports very little happens on campus in the summer time. No students = very little crime. In addition, I been having lunch at the main dining commons every Friday with a group of Admissions Counselors who talk to students and parents who plan to attend EMU, or are exploring EMU. Questions about crime are infrequent. At 2008′s Explore Eastern when the campus murder was fresh in everyone’s mind, only 4 people attended a session with the new campus Police Chief, two of the four were parents.
I don’t remember this much crime being reported by the A2 news in 2007 at U of M: 3 forcible rapes, 16 aggravated assaults, 30 burgleries, 4 robberies. What happens with the demise of the A2 news?