Following two weekend crimes on the Ithaca College campus — a burglary in the Circle Apartments and an armed robbery in the Garden Apartments, involving similar stolen items  — the Office of Public Safety has increased security and patrol staff on campus.

No arrests have been made in either incident, and the investigations are continuing, Investigator Tom Dunn said. He said Public Safety is investigating several leads in both cases.

Four male student residents of Garden Apartment 27 reported at 12:18 a.m. Monday that a man with a black handgun entered their apartment at approximately 11:15 p.m. Sunday. The suspect went upstairs and confronted the four students, Dunn said. A fifth resident was not in the apartment at the time of the incident, but all five residents had property stolen. The suspect stayed in the apartment for an estimated 15 to 20 minutes, gathering an undisclosed amount of cash, several laptops, PlayStation paraphernalia and multiple iPods, Dunn said. No students were injured.

Public Safety officials said this is the first crime of its kind to occur on campus in recent memory. Dunn said Public Safety has increased patrol at the Garden Apartments.

The students described the suspect as a dark-complexion black male with dreadlocks, 20 to 30 years old, standing approximately 6 feet tall and weighing 230 pounds, Dunn said. He was last seen wearing black jeans, a black hoodie and a purple bandana.

The residents told officials they did not know the identity of the robber, Dunn said. Public Safety has not ruled out the possibility that the suspect may be a student or a member of the college community.

Dunn said forced entry was not used to enter the apartment or the building. The students told officials they had left the door to their apartment unlocked. Bob Holt, director of Public Safety, said “piggybacking” into residence halls is common in the community.

Dunn said Public Safety believes the suspect had the intention of entering that specific apartment, seeing as no other apartments in the building were entered.

The campus community was notified of the incident at 2:52 a.m. in the first use of the college’s new Emergency Notification System, Dave Maley, associate director of media relations said. Maley said the college debated whether or not to use the ENS because of the early hour. He said it took time to decide, as well as to gather useful information, such as a description of the suspect.  

“It’s a balance between timeliness and the amount of information,” he said.

Forty-four percent of the undergraduate community received either a text message or a phone call, and by default, every student, faculty and staff member received an email message. Maley said the messages were received “within a matter of minutes.”

At an open-forum held outside the Garden Apartments Monday, Holt spoke to students who lived in the area.

Junior Seth Drick, who lives in Apartment 27, said his roommates often forget to lock the door and that they hadn’t considered that something like this could happen on campus.

“[I was afraid] only in the sense that it was so close to home,” Drick said. “ ... You think that we’re in our own little bubble on campus but then something like that happens. It’s kind of a wake-up call.”

Holt said many concerned parents have contacted him.

Lucy Nicastro, the mother of a resident of Garden Apartment 27, received news of the robbery from her daughter. She said she would not have expected something like this to happen in Ithaca.

“I am very concerned and very afraid,” Nicastro said.

A separate incident occurred on Saturday morning in a Circle 1 Apartment, sometime between 2:30 and 7:30 a.m. Students reported at 7:45 a.m. that cash, a computer, iPods and various other items were missing from their apartment Dunn said one of the window screens in the apartment was damaged and popped out of its place, indicating that forced entry was used in the burglary.

The Office of Public Safety is urging anyone with information about either incident to call 274-3333. Anonymous tips can be made at 274-1060.