PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Police are looking for two men who illegally entered an off-campus Temple University student apartment Friday morning and robbed 11 people at gunpoint.
Police say the men entered the house, near 15th and Master streets, at about 6 a.m., while all occupants — eight women and three men between the ages of 20 and 22 — were asleep. Temple University Police have confirmed at least some are students at the university.
The housemates told KYW Newsradio partner NBC10 they were locked in a room together for over an hour.
“There was a guy with a gun, and he came into a couple of our rooms, and then he made one of us go and wake up the rest of the roommates,” said Temple senior Autumn. The suspects each wore a mask and black hoodie.
“They wanted each of our phones. They were looking for drugs, but we told them we didn't have any drugs. They took our debit cards. They were looking for cash. They searched all of our rooms, but they didn't really take much else besides our phone, cards, cash.”
The men threatened each of the housemates with handguns as they forced each of them to disable the security settings on their iPhones.
“They called us, one by one, to come up to our phones and sign out of our iClouds and take our passwords off. And when we would walk up, they would hold a gun to our head the whole time,” said Myla, one of the victims.
Afterward, although they were all locked up together without their phones, they were still able to call for help, said Morgan, another victim. She said the men did not take their laptops, and she was able to use iMessage.
“They left our room, and then they … locked the door with a tie. We couldn't get out, but our laptops were in there,” she said. “I texted my sister. I'm like, ‘Call 911,’ gave her the address. ‘We were just robbed.’ We texted everyone we could, ‘Call 911,’ to see who would answer.”
The men escaped in a car they stole from one of the residents. It is unknown what direction they went, but police are looking for a silver 2015 Lincoln MKZ with Pennsylvania license plate number KMF-1560.
The housemates said the men got into the property through a gate that had been broken all year.
The property manager, Princeton International Properties, did not immediately return calls to KYW Newsradio — but a next-door neighbor provided a screenshot of an email the company had sent to her:
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The victims reported no injuries. Police have recovered no weapons and have made no arrests.
Temple police released a statement Friday afternoon, saying the robbery happened just outside of the university's patrol zone.
Shortly after 7 a.m. this morning, numerous students were robbed at gunpoint at an off-campus property located outside of the university’s patrol zone in the 1300 block of North 15th St. The most important thing is that no students were hurt or injured during this incident, which will continue to be investigated by the Philadelphia Police Department.
The safety of the Temple community remains the university’s top priority. Just this week, we launched the Best Nest Program, which helps students and their families find off-campus housing that meets certain safety and security criteria.
EDITOR'S NOTE: KYW Newsradio has learned that an earlier report, that one of the housemates had been tied up, was false. The article above has been corrected.