Daylight gunman robs student of valuables near U athletic buildings

A gunman on the edge of the University of Minnesota ripped away a student's backpack and fled in the latest violent crime in or near the Minneapolis campus, authorities said.

The robbery of a 21-year-old woman about 9:20 a.m. Wednesday near 14th Avenue and 6th Street SE., across the street from university athletic buildings, prompted campus police to issue a crime alert Thursday.

The suspect approached the woman as she headed to class, demanded her backpack and showed her a handgun, the alert read. The man pulled the backpack away and ran north on 14th Avenue. He remains at large.

A wallet, a smartphone and an iPad were in the backpack, police said.

The student, who was not hurt, reported the crime to police about 12 hours later, "so officers were not able to conduct an immediate search for the suspect," the alert noted.

Minneapolis police said they are checking for video surveillance that may have recorded the incident.

"I know it's unsafe at night around campus," said the woman, who asked that her identity not be published out of concern for her safety. "But I never think of crime ... in daytime."

Explaining why she took 12 hours to notify police, the woman said the gunman took her phone and the key to her home, and "my mind was blank at the time."

She said her nerves have settled down. "I am good now," she said. "Just feel a little stressful for finals."

The woman said her instructors have given her extra time to take her exams.

The number of reported robberies on and near the Minneapolis campus is higher than average this year. U statistics show that 25 were reported from September through November, compared to an average 18 for those three months each year since 2008.

Campus safety was discussed extensively during two days of Board of Regents meetings, which wrapped up Friday.

School officials outlined to the board their "multipronged approach" to make the campus safer. Those tactics, they said, include assessing building security, and additional lighting, emergency call stations and security cameras.

The gunman in Wednesday's holdup is described as black, 20 to 25 years old, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a heavy build. He was wearing a black winter jacket similar to the North Face brand, with a black sweater underneath. The sweater's collar was pulled over his nose and mouth.

He also had on black knit gloves and a winter hat, a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, bluejeans and dirty black work boots, police said.

Just a day before this latest incident, the state Senate called a special hearing to hear from students and others concerned about the spate of armed holdups and sexual assaults on and around campus this semester. Still unsolved among these crimes are a sexual assault late last month, an attempt to abduct a woman near TCF Bank Stadium a few days later and an armed robbery of a student in Anderson Hall.

Anyone with information about this most recent off-campus crime or others is asked to call Minneapolis police at 612-692-8477.