A Tufts student was robbed at gunpoint in the early hours of Dec. 18, but escaped with almost nothing stolen thanks in large part to his own daring. The suspect remains at large.
The robber approached the male student on the edge of campus, at the corner of Powderhouse Boulevard. and Packard Avenue, as the victim was walking back to his room in Latin Way around 1 a.m.
The suspect brandished the handgun he was carrying in his waistband and demanded money, but the student only had $1 in his wallet, according to Sergeant Robert McCarthy of the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD). The victim handed over the lone bill.
Then the thief asked if the student was carrying a cell phone, which he was. But, in an act of boldness that hearkens back to the September incident in which junior Jason Safer convinced two armed robbers to give him back his phone's SIM card, the victim lied.
"He replied no," McCarthy said. "He did have [a cell phone] but he said he didn't."
After the robber fled the area, the student waited for three minutes and then called TUPD, McCarthy said. TUPD notified the Somerville Police about the incident.
Soon after that robbery, TUPD encountered another victim who reported a similar mugging and a comparable perpetrator. The second incident occurred farther up Packard Avenue, near Broadway. The victim of this robbery was not a Tufts student.
The Somerville Police later received a report of a third incident, with the same suspect description, near the Somerville-Cambridge border. Again, a Tufts student was not involved.
The robber was described as being in his mid-20s, with a messy goatee, wearing blue jeans, a dark hooded sweatshirt and a white knit ski cap.
Any information regarding the robberies should be reported to the Somerville Police Department at 617-625-1600.
