.Crime statistics in the Como, Prospect Park and Marcy-Holmes neighborhoods have remained steady for the past few months.
According to statistics from the Minneapolis Police Department, there have been no rapes, robberies or assaults reported in the Como neighborhood in the month of June.
Adam Engelman, a political science senior who works with neighborhood safety issues, said typically crime is slow in the summer because there are not as many students living in the area.
“As far as the summer, it’s been really quiet,” he said.
“There’s always going to be parties, but there aren’t too many major complaints.”
In the Prospect Park neighborhood, there has been one reported rape, one robbery and one assault.
In Marcy-Holmes, there was one rape, three robberies and six assaults during the same month.
Police nab juvenile purse snatchers
Just after 10 p.m. on July 12, two suspects snatched a purse from University alumna Ellen Stargardt as she was walking to her house.
However, her neighbor, Jacob Lizakowski, another recent University graduate, chased the juvenile suspects to their car and retrieved the purse.
Police spokesperson Amelia Huffman said the robbery was connected with another Eighth Street Southeast robbery that occurred minutes before in the same area.
“I really didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Stargardt said.
She was on the phone with Lizakowski when the incident happened.
Lizakowski started chasing down the suspects after one yanked Stargardt’s purse out of her arm and the other pushed her to the ground.
“I can’t believe that he just went into action that fast; he didn’t even think about it,” she said. “I bought him some drinks at the bar that night.”
Lizakowski said he chased the suspects to their vehicle a few blocks away. When he got to the car, he gripped the steering wheel, preventing them from moving out of the parking spot, and grabbed the purse on the center console.
“They weren’t that intimidating,” Lizakowski said.
The suspects, 14- and 17-year-olds of Minneapolis, according to Huffman, were eventually able to get out of the parking spot after hitting a few cars and running into Lizakowski, he said.
Police apprehended the two suspects the next day after they crashed into a tree and attempted to flee from officers, Huffman said.
The two were not injured.
“I’m just really glad that nothing happened to Jake and I that was more severe, because they could have had a weapon,” Stargardt said. “We are both really lucky.”
Child pornography found on laptop
University computer services officials found files containing child pornography while they were cleaning out a student-owned laptop.
Deputy Police Chief Steve Johnson said the owner bought the laptop on eBay.com.
The owner of the computer, Don Kim, a University graduate student, said police are still looking into the matter and he never thought such files would be on the computer when he bought the computer.
“Things happen,” he said. “I’m just hoping to get my computer back.”
No arrests have been made, Johnson said.
Theft from ‘money box’ in U building
According to University police reports, someone took a wooden “money box” filled with approximately $100 located in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences building sometime between July 6 and July 9.
The cash came from an “honor system” in the food and beverage area, said the report.
The report also said there has been an ongoing situation with people stealing the “money box.”
The officer on the scene, Kari Stephney, advised the reporting person to “change how they maintain the money,” according to the report.
Irene Jacobson, a network administrator who reported the crime, said the box is locked. It is owned by Association for Computing Machinery, a club that sells pop and candy to members and deposits the money in the bank every two weeks, she said.