At about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday, three or four males entered McDonald’s on Main Street, displayed hand guns and robbed the store of an undisclosed amount of money. They reportedly ran away from campus and have not been caught. According to a Bradley police report summary, no one was injured.
The campus community received an email about the robbery about an hour and a half after the incident.
“Both Bradley University and Peoria police officers responded to the area and searched the neighborhood for the suspects,” Bradley University Chief of Police Brian Joschko said. “I am not aware of any Bradley students involved in or witnesses to this incident. The Peoria Police Department is the lead investigating agency.”
Senior learning behavior specialist Jennie Balikov is a resident at Main Street Commons, across the street from the fast food restaurant. She said she feels safe within the building, but beyond that, she remembers to use caution.
“I have full confidence in the security system and measures that are taken to keep unwanted visitors and dangers out of our building,” she said. “However, I am not comfortable at all walking around alone outside my building. The incident last year at Jimmy John’s really scared me, as well as a lot of the people who live here, just because a shot was fired and it is so close to our building. Then this happened at McDonald’s and it’s not two, but four men armed.”
Balikov also said she believes the police should send out prompter safety alerts.
“What makes me mad is that the safety alerts [came out] over an hour after the robbery took place,” she said. “I think that police need to realize that at any moment a student could have walked into the McDonald’s and who knows what could have happened.”
Senior nursing major Debrah Rosenblum, also a Main Street Commons resident, said in light of the recent incidents, she would prefer more communication from the Bradley police.
“The e-mails are not sufficient warning,” she said. “I’d rather have multiple lock-downs to know that we are safe than to have e-mails that are normally sent 12 hours after the crime occurred.”
Rosenblum said the Bradley police should use the ForeWarn text messaging system more often.
“Once the BU police gets word from Peoria police about active or current situations, it should be sent out in a text message,” she said. “Most people have access to text messages, but they don’t always have access to their email at every time in the day.”
