As thousands of university students head back to campus this week, one student is calling for better security measures after being robbed her second day on campus.
Like many students, Brianna Brooks was excited to get back to school and start classes at the University of Winnipeg.
However, on Wednesday while it was still daylight, Brooks was robbed by two suspects while she was sitting alone in the student centre.
“I had my headphones in, (they) came up and took my bag and my laptop right out of my hands,” Brooks said. “They stole my wallet, my keys, my textbooks, my laptop…everything.”
But she didn’t give up easy. Brooks gave chase and the entire encounter was captured on surveillance video.
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She followed the pair through the hallways, chasing them up the stairs and out the door. Throughout the ordeal, multiple onlookers joined in.
The 20-year-old managed to chase the suspects to Portage Place before one of them allegedly threw her to the ground and fled.
“There’s really no part of me that thinks it’s a secure place to be anymore,” Brooks said. I’m scared it will happen to somebody else. It could have been much worse. I’m lucky what happened to me wasn’t violent.”
With more than 10,000 students and an open concept campus that allows the public to wander through, the second-year student is calling for better security.
“It’s unsafe for students if there’s people who are here with a different intent,” she said.
While the university said the incident is an unfortunate crime of opportunity, it also admitted it’s not the first time it’s happened.
“We were looking at the statistics on this. On average over the last five years there are three incidents like this in any given month,” Laurel Repski said. Repski is in charge of campus security and emergency preparedness.
“When you think about that in the context of 10,000 to 14,000 people on campus… it’s low. But again, anytime that happens…it’s not a good thing,” she said.
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Over the past few years the campus has been upgrading security and safety systems throughout.
There are 271 cameras at various buildings and sites on campus along with a trained security team of both staff and contract guards.
On Tuesday the university also launched an app that allows students to call security or 911 through the touch of a button.
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