Police investigating attempted hold-ups in Urbana
URBANA — Urbana police are investigating two attempted armed robberies that happened early Thursday and late Thursday in the same north Urbana neighborhood.
Lt. Bryant Seraphin said one happened just before 11 p.m. Thursday while the other happened about 12:15 a.m. Thursday about two blocks away.
In the 11 p.m. attempt, Seraphin said an 18-year-old Urbana man had just made a Jimmy John's delivery to a repeat customer in the 1300 block of West Tremont Street and was returning to his car. As he neared the car, he was approached by four young men, one of whom had a black ski mask over his face and a baseball bat in his hands.
The masked man told him not to move and the other three men started to surround his car when the delivery man jumped in and drove off. Police were unable to locate the would-be robbers and the delivery man was physically unharmed.
About 12:15 a.m. Thursday, Seraphin said a 20-year-old University of Illinois student reported he was riding his bicycle north on Goodwin Avenue near Tremont Street when he attempted to pass three young men who were walking north on Goodwin.
The men knocked the victim off his bike. He reported that two of them pulled out guns, pointed them at him and demanded his wallet, phone and backpack.
"As the robbery was happening, a car drove by and the offenders put their guns away and walked south," Seraphin said.
The victim ran north on Goodwin and called police from a nearby convenience store. Police were unable to find any suspects.
The victim was not physically injured and police found his property near the scene of the holdup.
Seraphin said other than the time the attempted robberies occurred and the location, he said police have no way of knowing if they're related since the victims were unable to give much of a physical description of the attackers.
Anyone with information is asked to call Urbana polcie at 384-2320 or Crimestoppers at 373-8477.
"...the victims were unable to give much of a physical description of the attackers."
But the media report on the UPD website gives race and height, plus which ones were carrying guns, at least for the bicycle attack. I can't find the report of the Papa John's attempt.
But if you actually look at the UPD report of the bicycle attack you'll see that they weren't all 6'1. One was 5 foot, another 5'8, another 6'3. So you know that it was a group of three guys ranging from very short to quite tall. They were thin. The short guy and the tall guy were carrying guns. They were black. Maybe someone a couple blocks away saw a group like that piling into a car. Maybe someone knows a group of characters like that. The N-G is sacrificing an opportunity to solve the case when it omits offender descriptions.
While I can forgive them for omitting facts, it's a serious offense for a newspaper to state a fact when it knows that fact isn't true. The paper quoted the officer's evidently flippant remark that there wasn't much of a description for the offenders when in fact they had a quite detailed description at hand. I had hoped that they'd have a good reason, but none coming, I suspect it comes from the same spirit of social engineering and political correctness that's muffled these reports for a long time. The N-G has good intentions but it's decided that its readers can't handle the truth. I hope this attitude doesn't spread to its other reporting. In any case, it is what it is and I'm done complaining about it.
I don't know... All white guys over 60 look alike to me anymore. I think detailed descriptions of suspects helps the public, and law enforcement. After all, cash rewards are offered thru Crime Stoppers. Maybe; some of their family, friends, neighbors, or good citizens will rat them out based on the descriptions?
Adding a suspect's race in addition to their height, weight, and approximate age is hardly a "detailed description." A 5 foot 10 to 6 foot tall African American male with medium build in his early or mid 20's? Cool, that only narrows it down to several thousand in C-U alone.
I'm not even necessarily saying that the N-G shouldn't publish the race of crime suspects. I'm just saying that it's much ado about nothing, and that we all know what most of you guys posting about it would really like to say about black folks if the N-G wouldn't block your account for it.
Sorry, I know I said I'd stop complaining, but it really bugs me to be branded a racist because I question the N-G's haywire policy on reporting race. Alabaster, you're the one saying we should just stop complaining and assume the attackers were black. In what dimension of political correctness is that less racist than asking what the race of the attacker was?
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