Freshman Jenny Lee was looking for a parking space in garage lot C on campus. As she drove up and down the aisles to find a spot, she noticed a man and a woman walking nearby. She paid no attention to them and was happy that there was an empty spot ahead. She pulled her lime-green Volkswagen into it.

She got out of the car and went around to the passenger side to retrieve her backpack. That’s when she noticed that the man she had seen with the woman was walking straight at her, but now he had a bandana tied around his mouth.

He mumbled something, but Lee, now uneasy, did not understand what he said.

“Drop your keys, bitch!” There was no mistaking what he was saying this time.

That’s when Lee saw the black barrel of a handgun in his hand. The pistol was pointed at her midsection. She dropped her keys.

The man next told her to drop her backpack. She obeyed. He told her to turn around and walk out of the garage.

Lee obeyed. She walked slowly away, terrified at the thought that he might shoot her in the back.

Once on the ramp outside, Lee sprinted to Centennial Halls and help.

Lee’s carjacking and robbery last Wednesday at 11:15 p.m. in DU parking garage C was the third robbery of a DU student in the past two weeks and since students returned to campus after spring break.

No suspects have been apprehended in the two earlier robberies, but in Lee’s case the carjackers were caught in less than half an hour.

Lee credits fellow freshman D.J. Close, her boyfriend, for the arrest. She called Close, whom she had just been visiting. On his way to campus, he spotted Lee’s lime-green car at an intersection.

“So, he decided to follow them until the police could get there,” Lee said.

When police arrived at Centennial Halls, Lee told them about Close spotting her car and the police gave chase. The police quickly located Close following directly behind Lee’s vehicle a few miles from campus. Close then backed off to allow the officers to pursue.

The chase lasted for approximately 15 more minutes. The police eventually stopped the car in Centennial, a good 20-minute drive from campus.

Lee was called in to identify the two people in the car. She identified them as the man and woman she saw in the garage, and the man as the one who pulled the gun on her.

“If it weren’t for D.J. the police would have never been able to find them that quickly,” said Lee of Close.

Though the previous two robberies appear to be unrelated to what happened to Lee, the robberies are frightening students and concern campus officials.

“We are deeply concerned with the incidents that have gone on,” said Tyrone Mills, DU Campus Safety marketing and recruiting manager. “We hope that these don’t continue.”

The first of these crimes occurred at 2 a.m. on Thursday, March 29. A male student was walking on High Street, near the corner of Asbury Avenue, when a man approached him, said he had a weapon and demanded the student’s wallet, according to a crime alert circulated by Campus Safety.

Once he had the wallet, the man, described as a white male in a dark hooded sweatshirt, fled south on High Street.

Only two days after this robbery, on March 31at about 10 p.m., a white male approached a female DU student immediately after she withdrew cash from an ATM at the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Buchtel and Colorado boulevards. The student said the man threatened her with a handgun. The female student handed over her cash and was not harmed

Although the two March robberies were off campus, they heightened apprehension on campus. The latest robbery, occurring on campus, is of greater concern to authorities.

“In every case that we’ve had, all of theses incidents were not on campus until now,” said Mills. “Whether these are related or are copy cat crimes, we are not sure of now.”

Lee said that she remains frightened.

“I’m terrified to park my car at night or even drive at night,” said Lee. “You never think that it can happen to you, but it can. It all just happened so fast.”

Mills said that Lee’s experience shows that students need to be as careful as possible when being out at night

“[Students] need to be alert to what’s going on around them at all times,” said Mills. “We encourage students to program the campus safety emergency number into their phone.”

To contact Campus Safety in an emergency, call 303.871.3000.