Campus police arrested a 13-year-old youth after he allegedly attacked a Yale graduate student Thursday afternoon, University Police Lt. Michael Patten said.
Patten said the crime took place at around 1 p.m. when three youths approached the graduate student, who was walking past the corner of Prospect and Canner streets. He said the graduate student informed the police that one of the youths punched him in the face and asked for his wallet.
“[The youth] said, ‘give me your money,'” Patten said, “[The student] ran home and called the police.”
After the graduate student reported the incident, Patten said University Police officer Merle Davis spotted three youths that fit the description in the report enter a house on Winchester Avenue later that day.
“[Davis] knocked on the door,” he said. “The three kids were in there. He brought the graduate student down and he identified them.”
The thirteen year-old was arrested after he was charged with criminal attempt to commit robbery, Patten said.
Patten said he could not disclose the name of the youth who attacked the graduate student because the identity of an arrested minor may not be revealed by the police.
A spokesperson for the New Haven Superior Court could not confirm whether the victim had filed a complaint without the name of the assailant.
Kyle Hood GRD ’08, who lives at 53 Winchester Ave., said he had not heard about the arrest in his neighborhood. He added that he felt safer living on Winchester Avenue, which runs parallel to Prospect Avenue, than other residential areas around campus where graduate students typically live.
“I actually feel safer here than when I lived in the ‘Grad Ghetto,'” Hood said. “A lot of students live east of Whitney [Avenue] and north of Humphrey [Avenue], and some people call that the ‘Grad Ghetto.'”
Hood, who lives on the end of Winchester Avenue closest to campus, said he feels more crime is found further up Winchester.
“I think the farther north you go, the worse,” he said.
Patten said the area surrounding the University Police station, located near the base of Winchester Avenue, has had a higher concentration of arrests in the past.
Though Hood said he would not walk around in his neighborhood at late hours of the night, he said he feels the residential area is still safe.
“I think most people here are either graduate students or own their houses,” Hood said. “I think it’s about half graduate students and half people from New Haven.”
Hood said the only other crime he recalled in the area occurred last year on Mansfield Street where a School of Management student was hit with a brick thrown by two adolescents. Mansfield Street runs parallel to Winchester Avenue.