An attempted robbery was reported near Gerlinger Hall on Tuesday night, but the victim said he outran a man armed with a handgun.
Julian Collins, 19, of Eugene, said he was walking alone along the bicycle path between Gerlinger Hall and Pioneer Cemetery at 8:20 p.m. when he heard a man approach from behind.
“I turned around, and he had a gun shoved in my face,” Collins said.
The man seemed agitated and demanded money, Collins said, and he tried to calm the robber.
“I just kept telling him, ‘Calm down, it’s not worth it, we don’t have time for this, just put the gun down,’” Collins said. “It was scary, and your life really does flash before your eyes.”
A few seconds after he was stopped, Collins said his girlfriend called his cell phone, asking if he had reached the Sigma Nu fraternity house, which he was heading to after playing basketball at the Student Recreation Center. He told her he couldn’t talk, and once she hung up he turned and sprinted away from the man.
The man didn’t say anything at that point and didn’t appear to give chase, Collins said, but as Collins approached Sigma Nu, on 736 E. 11th Ave., he said he thought the man followed him. Collins then went to a nearby apartment and called his girlfriend and the Eugene Police Department.
The man was gone by the time the EPD responded, and police don’t have any leads, EPD spokeswoman Pam Alejandre said.
Collins described the man as a white male in his early 20s, about six-foot-two and 180 pounds, with dark hair and prominent acne scarring.
Although Collins also described the man as wearing black pants, a black sweatshirt and a black backpack, Alejandre warned that the description may be somewhat misleading. “Speaking as someone who’s had a gun shoved in my face, in that type of situation, gray, blue and black all seem like the same color,” she said.
Collins, who lived for 18 months in Orlando, Fla., before moving back to Eugene after graduating from high school, said that “even in a so-called safe place like Eugene, things like this
can happen.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, but you don’t really expect it here,” said Collins, who has also been held at gunpoint in Orlando. “People move here because it’s safe, but you never know.”
Tom Hicks, associate director for the University’s Department of Public Safety, encouraged students to contact DPS or EPD if they have any information about the incident or notice any suspicious activity.