Second gunpoint robbery
The University of Houston Department of Public Safety is located on the corner of Scott Street and Cullen Boulevard. | File Photo/The Daily Cougar
For the second time this week, a student was held up at gunpoint.
At approximately 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, a UH student was threatened with a firearm in UH Parking Lot 9C, said a UH Department of Public Safety news release. UHDPS said the suspect is African-American, average height and with short dreadlocks.
This is the second time in less than a week a student has been robbed with a gun. The first incident was reported by UHDPS on Tuesday. That student was robbed on Holman Street near Scott Street. Neither students’ names were released to the public.
The victim of yesterday’s incident, whose identity will be withheld for his safety, said he was at his car in parking lot 9C when he was approached by a man wielding a gun.
“I don’t normally park there, but I had to move my car Monday morning so that I didn’t get a ticket for being in the wrong lot,” he said.
“Thanks to it being Monday morning, every spot on campus was full. So the lot I normally park in, which is smaller and safer, I couldn’t fit in, I had to go to the very back of the lot. At the time I didn’t think of it as a big deal.”
After placing his backpack in the car, the victim felt someone grab him.
“I was like, ‘Oh, it’s someone I know, a friend, trying sneak up on me or something.’ They physically contacted me. I turned around and I was like, ‘Who is this man?’” the victim said.
The suspect took the victim’s iPod, wallet and phone.
“He was pointing a gun at my stomach and said, ‘Give me your stuff.’ I pull my phone out of my pocket, and I was holding my iPod in plain sight so he took that. After all that, he was like, ‘Wallet.’ I kind of hesitated for a second, because a thought was flashing through my mind,” he said. “Do I try to talk to the person or what? I was like, ‘Nah, I’m not going to talk to him.’
“He saw me hesitate and was like, ‘Wallet,’ again, and I was just like, ‘OK.’ I actually answered him kind of frustratedly, ‘Alright. Here is the wallet.’ That is really funny that I reacted like that.”
After the incident, the victim said he was in a slight state of shock but not panicky.
“I was just standing there thinking, ‘Well, that could have been a lot worse. Man that stinks,’” he said.
“I got into my car, and I was just going to drive to my next class without my license. And then I was like, ‘You know, I should probably report this.’
“I walked into (my residence hall) and I went to the front desk. I was like, ‘Hey, I was just robbed at gunpoint. Do you have a phone I could use to call the police?’”
The incident did end up having some later consequences with the victim’s wallet containing his debit card.
“He’s already spent $600 on my debit card within a few hours of it happening,” he said “I have a deficit of over $300 already, because I don’t keep a lot in my debit account.”
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