Welcome to The Phoenix’s weekly digest. Every week during the quarter, you can expect our writers’ takes on some campus happenings.

Last Monday, a student was robbed at gunpoint at 11:30 a.m. in front of Mansueto. Broad daylight. A focal point of campus. David Wang responds.

I can’t be the only one who felt a sense of whiplash last Monday upon receiving the following email at 12:30 from UCPD:

At approximately 11:30 a.m., Monday, February 23, 2026 – A member of the University of Chicago community walking on the sidewalk at approximately 5626 S. Ellis Avenue was approached by two unknown subjects who exited a dark blue Honda Accord bearing Illinois temporary license plate 728AC769. The suspects, armed with handguns, demanded and took property from the victim before returning to the vehicle and drove southbound on Ellis. The victim reported no physical injuries. The University of Chicago Police Department is investigating this incident.

It’s the kind of email that makes you do multiple double-takes as you read. “At approximately 11:30… so an hour ago? Wait, that’s in between classes… my God, did someone get robbed on the way to class? At 5626 S. Ellis… hey, isn’t that the MENG building? Isn’t that across from Mansueto?”

The boldness of this latest incident struck me the most: robbing someone at gunpoint during business hours on the sidewalk in front of a busy research facility. That student was not walking alone on a peripheral street at night—he or she was walking on one of the busiest thoroughfares on campus in broad daylight. But none of that proved a sufficient deterrent. For me, this generated a profound sense of paranoia and unease: is there nowhere on campus where you’re guaranteed not to get mugged?

One small detail from The Maroon’s reporting also caught my eye. Apparently, at the time of the robbery, there was no reaction from the people working in Mansueto. Perhaps the robbers had guessed, correctly, that the students there would all be too locked in to notice.

It’s easy for news like this to make one paranoid and cynical. In 2022, one of the first friends I made at UChicago got mugged during O-Week. Since then, I’ve gotten used to a steady drip of security alerts from Eric Heath, associate VP for safety and security. Eventually, I just assumed that something like this would happen once a quarter. Only the vehicles seemed to change. In my first quarter, the culprit rode a bike. The following January, the robbers were in a white Nissan. Then, in May, it was a red Kia Soul. (In August, another group of red Kia riders traded up, ditching their old car and driving away in a stolen Jeep.) A blue Camry, a silver Nissan, and another Kia. For some reason, Nissan and Kia are go-to cars for student-robbing. But every now and then, the robbers would shake things up. On November 10, 2024, two students were robbed by “three unknown subjects who exited a black sedan, possibly a Maserati.” Ooooh, a Maserati!

Twenty security alerts had piled up in my inbox before Monday brought the twenty-first. Sixteen were sent during the academic year: five in 2022–2023, seven in 2023–2024, and three from last year. Turns out, my once-a-quarter estimate was not that far off.

And this is where the second round of whiplash set in for me. I realized that Monday’s security alert was the only one this year. “Huh?” I thought. Putting aside the disturbing nature of this week’s robbery, somehow this year has been quietly shaping up to be the safest of the four I’ve spent here. The UCPD’s records back this up: measuring from the post-pandemic high of 2023, in every neighborhood under the UCPD’s jurisdiction, total violent crime has fallen by at least 10 percent. In Hyde Park – South Kenwood (47th to 61st Street, Cottage Grove to the lake), violent crime has fallen 62 percent to below the 10-year average of 2012-2021. 208 robberies occurred in Hyde Park in 2023; last year, there were 77. Total crime (that is, violent and property crimes) also fell or held steady across all four districts. The only category of crime that is still ticking up is theft, though anyone who’s had their bike stolen didn’t need me to tell them that.

And then, someone got mugged in front of Mansueto. But we were doing so well!

That’s the thing: no matter what the data says, a robbery like Monday’s leaves you feeling unsafe. It doesn’t matter that this year might statistically be the safest yet. Someone got mugged on the ERC’s doorstep. It didn’t matter how many witnesses there were. It didn’t stop the robbers from doing what they did. The cognitive dissonance is just so strong: just one robbery all school year, but it happened in front of the library.

I’m not sure how to process this information, and I can’t be the only one feeling this way. Ironically, reading about the latest, boldest robbery on campus spurred my realization that campus has only gotten safer over the last three years. But there’s still a little voice in the back of my head going, “yeah… but…” And again, I can’t be the only one.

  The least one can do is stay alert. Monday’s robbery is no reason to panic, but then, the positive trendlines of the last three years are no justification for complacency either. Stay aware of your surroundings. Don’t listen to music while you’re walking. And if nothing else, keep an eye out for red Kias and white Nissans.

Which brings me to one last bit of whiplash, one final double-take I had while reading the email. “…two unknown subjects who exited a dark blue Honda Accord bearing Illinois temporary license plate 728AC769… they were driving a Honda?”

“Damn,” I thought. “They’re shaking things up.”

Stay tuned for next week’s edition. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, disagreements, or words of support, we want to hear them! Write to us at thechicagophoenix@gmail.com.