A 21-year-old UC Berkeley student was robbed at gunpoint Monday night, then chased and attacked when she refused to give up her phone, authorities report.
The Berkeley resident was walking at 10:20 p.m. in the 2600 block of Dwight Way (near Hillegass Avenue) when two people approached her and demanded her property, according to authorities. One of them had a handgun. The pair demanded the student’s purse, which she gave them. But, when they demanded her phone, the woman refused and tried to run away.
One of the robbers chased her, said Officer Byron White, Berkeley Police Department spokesman. When he caught up with her, he threw her on the ground and took the phone. The woman sustained minor injuries, according to the University of California Police Department.
The robbers ran south on Hillegass. They were described as black and 5’9″ to 5′ 10″ tall wearing dark clothing. The person with the gun had short curly hair. His accomplice had medium-length hair.
Officers who responded did not find the robbers. But they did locate the woman’s discarded phone as well as a loaded handgun during a search of the area.
There have been at least 153 robberies in Berkeley in 2019, according to BPD data. Berkeleyside has asked the department about how many of those were armed robberies but that information has not been provided.
Berkeley tends to average about a robbery a day. A quarter of Berkeley’s robberies in 2017 involved a gun.
