imported post
Geeeze you guys, you missed the best part and that should have been in the description field.
http://commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jan/15/students-robbed-inside-classroom-lemoyne-owen-coll/
An intruder terrorized an English class at LeMoyne-Owen College on Thursday morning, bursting in with a gun and demanding purses and wallets from 18 students and their instructor.
The gunman escaped with jewelry and cash after about 10 minutes in Steele Hall on the South Memphis campus.
No shots were fired and nobody was hurt, but one student was hospitalized for an undisclosed medical problem.
Late Thursday, police were still looking for a 25- to 30-year-old black man, about 5-feet-8 to 6-feet tall with a slim build.
He wore a black leather jacket, blue jeans, white sneakers and possibly a wig. Investigators didn't know if he was a student.
College officials alerted students of the robbery by text message and put the school on lockdown while police searched for the suspect.
LeMoyne-Owen president
Johnnie B. Watson assured the community that the campus is safe.
"The incident is over, and we don't feel there is imminent danger," Watson said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. "We have every reason to believe the culprit will be arrested."
The robbery occurred in the second-story classroom just after 11:06 a.m.; the suspect also confronted a second teacher who entered the room during the robbery.
School officials provided police with surveillance video of the suspect.
The college is partially encircled by a low fence, but the campus is easily accessible to students and others, said Watson.
"Most college campuses in the inner city don't have the luxury of being sheltered from their community," he said. "If people want to enter a campus, regardless of the height of the fence, they're going to enter that campus."
Two to three security officers are on duty at all times, Watson said, but he couldn't say where they were during the robbery.
Watson said he planned to meet with security officials in hopes of improving campus safety.
Afterwards, college officials granted investigators full access to the campus and remaining classes were canceled. Classes will resume today.
LeMoyne-Owen is in a South Memphis neighborhood that has been revitalized in recent years with the demolition of public housing and construction of a mixed-income community.
The college has about 700 students enrolled.
-- Hank Dudding: 529-2565