Temple students feel traumatized after home invasion off-campus
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Eleven Temple University students were forced out of bed by two armed men and tied up at their off-campus apartment on Friday morning, police say. With some quick thinking, two of the students managed to alert their families to call for help.
Luckily, no one was hurt.
But the victims tell CBS3 they were held at gunpoint and locked in a basement.
Their apartment was ransacked and police say the suspects stole a car, cell phones and money but they may have been looking for something else.
"My heart is still pounding 200,000 beats per minute and I drove down here," Scott, a father of one of the students, said.
Scott raced to North Philadelphia Friday morning after his daughter used her laptop to sent a message through social media. She was locked in a basement while two men with guns were robbing her apartment, just off the campus of Temple University.
"They were all taken into the basement and tied up, and the home invasion might have lasted an hour and a half," Scott said.
Temple University said in a statement the safety of the Temple community remains the university's top priority. Last week they launched the Best Nest Program, which helps students and their families find off-campus housing that meets certain safety and security criteria.
Police say the armed robbery happened in the 1300 block of North 15th Street around 7 a.m. Eleven Temple students were inside the apartment at the time sleeping.
The victims who spoke to CBS3 did not want to give their full names. They said they were woken up, forced into the basement at gunpoint and ordered to hand over their credit cards, keys and cash.
"They wanted each of our phones," said Autumn, one of the students. "They were looking for drugs, but we told them we didn't have any drugs."
"Overall, it was just like a violating experience, really," one student said.
The students say they have been complaining for months that the gate outside the off-campus apartment doesn't lock properly -- and claim the property management company never fixed it.
"I reached out multiple times," Myla said. "They didn't come and fix it. My mom reached out to them. They didn't come and fix it."
Now, this group of students is left feeling traumatized and unsafe.
"It's our senior year, which also kind of sucks because this should be one of the better times of college," Nina said.
The students tell CBS3 they received an email from the property management company Friday morning after the robbery that the gate issues will be fixed.
Eyewitness News has reached out to the property management company, but they have yet to comment on this story.
No arrests have been made in this case.