Woman changing her tire robbed at gunpoint

A University of Arizona Police Department officer was patrolling campus on Nov. 23 at about 3:44 a.m. when he heard a call over the Tucson Police Department radio about an armed robbery that had just occurred at Sixth Street and Park Avenue.

While the officer was on his way to the location to provide assistance, he heard a TPD officer ask for a UAPD officer to respond, because the robbery was possibly on UA property. The officer responded to the Sixth Street Parking Garage and met with a TPD officer who explained that the victim had been in the bus pullout area, just south of the parking garage when the crime occurred.

The woman said she was on her way home from the Taco Shop but had to pull into a bus pullout at the parking garage to change a flat tire. The woman was there approximately two minutes before three people wearing black hooded sweatshirts came up to her. At first, she thought they were going to help her change her tire. Then one of the men held a silver gun to her head and ordered her to get on the ground before stealing her purse. Another man told her to “”calm the fuck down.””

The victim told the officer that the men left on foot, westbound on Sixth Street, but she later changed her statement and said they left southbound on Fremont Avenue. The woman’s purse is a salmon-colored Nine West purse, and contained a black and grey Tommy Hilfiger wallet. In it was her Social Security card, checks and approximately $20 in cash.

While the UAPD officer was with the woman, TPD officers were able to find three people at the intersection of Seventh Street and Euclid Avenue that were detained as suspects. Two were men and one was a woman. One of the men matched the description of the suspects. A TPD officer came to meet with the UAPD officer and the victim, in order to escort her to the location where the three people were being detained by TPD. The victim was taken to the location where the suspects were in order to identify them and confirm that they had been the ones to rob her. The three people were transported to UAPD to be interviewed by a detective.

Police changed the tire for the woman and parked it for safekeeping at the parking garage. The officer then transported her to UAPD to be interviewed. Once the interview was over, the detective advised the UAPD officer that the three men had entered the car before they fled the scene. The officer then escorted the woman and her parents back to the car, while the detective processed it for latent prints and DNA.

While this was going on, another officer spoke with the woman who was with the two other male suspects. She identified herself with an Arizona driver’s license. As the officer was interviewing one of the men, she said, “”Erik put something in my bag,”” referring to the handbag she was carrying. The officer opened her purse and observed a pair of bolt cutters that were about 16 inches long.

At this time, the victim showed up with police and positively identified the two men as those who had robbed her. The officer took them into custody. At 11:45 a.m., the woman was transported from UAPD to Pima County Jail, where she was booked on charges of armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.

The other two male suspects were arrested by a different UAPD officer at 12:29 p.m. and transported to Pima County Jail. They were booked for armed robbery and aggravated assault. One of the men was additionally booked for possession of drug paraphernalia after an officer found a glass pipe with black and white burnt residue in the pocket of his jacket.

Handwriting not graffitist’s main concern

A UA employee reported that sometime between 5 p.m. on Nov. 19 and 8 a.m. on Nov. 22 someone used red spray paint to deface a sign that was on the east side of the Office of International Faculty and Scholars.

At 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 23, a UAPD officer went to talk to the employee. He said that he had left campus on Nov. 19 at 5 p.m., and, at that time, the blue and white UA sign on the curb was undisturbed. When he returned the following Monday, someone had spray painted three illegible characters in red spray paint on the side of the sign.

The employee could offer no leads or suspects. He said that he would notify UA Facilities Management to remove the graffiti. The officer took photographs of the sign and the surrounding area.

Someone’s missing their credit cards

A black wallet was found in the back of a dark green pickup truck parked in a UA parking lot on Nov. 23.

The wallet had two Visa/Wells Fargo debit and check cards, an Arizona driver’s license, a gift card from Best Buy, a gift card from Baja Fresh, a CatCard, four miscellaneous credit cards, a voter registration card and a photograph.

A detective from UAPD took custody of the black wallet and searched for a contact information number. The wallet was then given to a UAPD officer and placed into property and evidence for safekeeping.

The owner was contacted via his UA email address. The officer left him a message that his wallet was found and that he could come pick it up from the police station.