Last Monday, Feb. 11, a male UW student was walking eastbound on Northeast 45th Street near 17th Avenue Northeast around 7 P.M. The student was walking on the north side of the street and text messaging on his cell phone when two men approached him.

The two men confronted the student and demanded that he give them all his money. The student then ran into the middle of Northeast 45th Street to get away from the two men. He used his cell phone to call 911 and gave a description of the two suspects, who promptly fled the area.

Seattle Police responded and began to search the area for the men fitting the description given by the victim. Police found one of the suspects in a local shop on the 4300 block of University Way Northeast. The suspect was arrested and found to be in possession of a stolen cellular phone.

The student positively identified the suspect, who was booked into King County Jail for investigation of robbery and possession of stolen property.

The other suspect has not yet been located.

Due to recent criminal activity in and around campus, extra police patrols have been initiated by SPD and the UW Police Department (UWPD). SPD is increasing its deployment by bringing in extra officers, including an entire squad and sergeant on weekends and sporadic additions during the week. UWPD has increased its Incident Prevention Team patrols by adding two additional officers per shift.

None of the recent criminal activity is connected, said UWPD chief Ray Wittmier at town hall meeting Feb. 13 on campus safety.

Wittmier said police presence would continue, “as long as we need to, may be until the end of the school year.”

Bryan Weiser, the vice president of public relations at the Interfraternity Council, attended the town hall meeting.

“A lot of things were said that sounded like good steps, but I’m going to have to see results,” he said. “Results are results and words are words.”

UWPD Assistant Police Chief Ralph Robinson said that UWPD would add incident prevention patrols in the area north of Northeast 45th Street on Sundays and Mondays, days that previously have not had police officers patrolling.

“This is probably an anomaly,” he said. “These types of incidents are being reported more readily now because we’re sending out timely warnings. … [With] additional media coverage the perception is that we’re [unsafe]. We’re actually a very safe campus, both on campus and off.”

UW President Mark Emmert responded to the perceived spikes in violence with an e-mail to the campus community.

“We are urging students to be smart by not traveling alone on foot at night and staying clear of potentially dangerous areas such as dark alleys,” he wrote. “Our students’ safety is of utmost importance to us, both on the campus and in the neighborhoods close to campus where large concentrations of students reside.”

Emmert hopes that students and police officials can work together to increase safety on and off campus.

“Working with SPD and UWPD, we can implement steps to provide more security presence; we can also as a community commit ourselves to helping one another and being aware of our surroundings and potential dangers,” he wrote. “Heightened awareness and heightened vigilance can have an effect. I am asking everyone to increase quantities of both.”

[Reach reporter Siv Prince at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]