Suspects flee scene in red car
Two USC students were robbed at gunpoint near the Horseshoe late Wednesday night.
The students, a man and a woman, were walking on the 800 block of Sumter Street at around 11:45 p.m. when a red four-door car pulled up beside them. One of its passengers pointed a handgun at the walkers, who were 18 and 19 years old, and demanded they drop their wallets and walk away, according to a Columbia police report. The car then fled southbound down Sumter.
No one was hurt in the incident.
The report describes the suspect as a black male between the ages of 20 and 25 with black hair and brown eyes. It lists him as 6-feet-2-inches tall and weighing about 170 pounds.
Little is known about the second suspect who was driving. The report describes him as black male between 20 and 30 years old.
Three police units responded at the Horseshoe Wednesday night, and Capt. Eric Grabski, spokesman for the USC Division of Law Enforcement and Safety, said that more units combed the area for cars matching the description but didn’t find the suspects.
Grabski said that, because officials determined the men weren’t an immediate threat to campus, they didn’t activate the Carolina Alert system. An email with details of the incident was sent to students at about 11 a.m. Thursday. The email initially identified the victims as two women, but was later corrected.
The area has seen a handful of gun-related incidents in the last year.
Over the summer, a fight broke out in the 803 Hookah Bar that led to a shooting. In another summer incident, a victim was robbed at gunpoint behind the Byrnes Building. In November, a bouncer at the hookah bar turned a man with a handgun away and later heard gunshots nearby.
Speaking to USC trustees earlier this month, Chris Wuchenich, the director of the USC law enforcement division, said that USC police and other law enforcement agencies had collaborated to close the bar down.
Since then, Grabski said, the area hasn’t seen the same degree of crime, and police don’t think that Wednesday’s robbery is related to last year’s series of incidents.
“We’ve not had any of the issues that we had,” Grabski said.