STRATEGIC PARTNERS
February 4, 2003
NEW YORK -- Students were evacuated at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus on Feb. 4 after an armed robber stole two guns and $74,000 from security guards refilling an ATM in a lobby and then fled.
According to a report in the New York Post, classes were canceled as 100 police officers searched for the suspect on the campus in the heart of downtown Brooklyn and then widened their search to the surrounding area.
Cops went to the top of the 11-story building where the ATM was located and worked their way down, but they failed after four hours to find the gunman described by witnesses as "scruffy." The suspect was described as a thin, 6-foot black man in his 20s, wearing a black ski cap and three-quarter-length black pea coat, and carrying a silver semiautomatic gun.
Other campus buildings also were evacuated after the 10:30 a.m. theft. About 5,000 teachers, students and administrators were displaced as the manhunt continued.
Three hours after the heist, a carjacker stole a 2002 Lexus from the nearby parking garage of Brooklyn Hospital. However, an arrest was later made in that case, and police said the two crimes were not linked.
Two security guards were surprised by the gunman while making an unscheduled stop at the school. According to the Post, police believe that the gunman may have followed the van, or may have known the ATM was running low on money and had signaled for a refill -- or that he had inside information that a delivery was being made.
