Shortly before Georgetown University shut down for winter break, a graduate student reported being assaulted and robbed. Although it was the third reported violent robbery involving Georgetown students in less than a month, safety officials maintained that crime was not on the rise. The graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, reported that on Dec. 18 at around 4:20 p.m., he was assaulted and robbed on the 1200 block of Potomac Street. The student said he had just finished his last final examination and had gone to Chipotle on M Street for a burrito. He had been feeling sick all day and said he was exhausted. While on his way back to campus, two men approached him at the intersection of Potomac and Prospect Streets and asked him for directions to Wisconsin Avenue, he said. The student gave them directions and continued walking. He said he did not feel nervous since it was light outside, but he did have a sense that something about the situation was wrong. oments later, one of the suspects allegedly struck him on the right side of the neck, knocking him to the brick sidewalk. Once the student was on the ground, the first suspect allegedly then said, “Give me your wallet,” according to a Metropolitan Police Department incident report. The student said he then surrendered his wallet to the suspect. He said it appeared that his attackers were angry that there was only $3 to $5 in his wallet. The student said that the assailants repeatedly threatened violence and that at least one kicked him while he was on the ground. “`Whatever this guy wants, I’m going to give it to him,'” the student said he was thinking at the time. One of the suspects then told the student to get under a nearby parked Jeep, he said. The suspect allegedly took the student’s cell phone and violently smashed it on the sidewalk, as if to make a show of it to the victim. “He said, `Don’t tell anyone or we’ll beat your ass,’ something like that,” the student said. PD estimated the value of the items stolen at $35. From underneath the Jeep, the victim saw the suspects run south on Potomac Street. Once they were out of sight, he waited 30 seconds to a minute longer then came out from under the Jeep. “Nothing really hurt; it was just shock,” he said. He said that a woman walking by, who had not seen the incident but noticed him getting out from under the Jeep asked him if he wanted her to call MPD, and he told her to do so. MPD responded shortly after, canvassed the area around the robbery and arrested both suspects, according to the incident report. The student was taken to Georgetown University Hospital, treated for minor injuries to the face and promptly released, according to the Department of Public Safety. In the MPD report, the student described the first suspect as a 5-foot-11 black male between the ages of 18 and 20, with shoulder-length dreadlocks. He described the second suspect as a black male between the ages of 19 and 20. He later said the assailants were juveniles. Rachel Manser (MSB ’08) reported being the victim of a Dec. 6 armed robbery just feet from her house on the 3400 block of O Street, approximately 750 feet from the scene of the Dec. 18 assault. On Nov. 23, a graduate student was allegedly robbed at gunpoint less than a block from the Lauinger Library steps. But DPS Associate Director Doris Bey said that the close occurrence of the two assaults does not reflect an increase in violent crime in the Georgetown area. “Last semester, one robbery was reported in October and one was reported in November,” she said. “It does not appear that students are being targeted more [than in previous years], since these represent less than the total numbers reported for the previous crime period.” PD spokesperson Josh Aldiva said that violent crimes have become less common in Georgetown in recent years, reflecting a city-wide trend of decreased criminal activity. “The crime in the city since the late ’90s is going down,” he said. According to MPD’s Web site, reported robberies decreased from 240 to 130 between 2001 and 2005 in the department’s Second District, which includes Georgetown. In 2006, the last full year for which MPD provides crime statistics, robbery reports in the Second District increased to 139. – HOYA Staff Writer Richie Frohlichstein contributed to this report