University of Minnesota students living off but near campus reported growing safety concerns after two back-to-back armed robberies just blocks away from each other in Minneapolis’ Dinkytown neighborhood on Sunday during broad daylight.

On Monday evening, the university sent an alert of a third incident nearby, this time a “strong arm robbery.”

The latest incident happened around 5:15 p.m. near the intersection of 14th Avenue Southeast and Sixth Street Southeast, the university alert read.

A spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department said officers are investigating at least the two Sunday armed robberies as connected.

The second of which, near Marcy Park and the intersection of Seventh Street Southeast and 11th Avenue Southeast, was caught on a Ring doorbell camera around 5:30 p.m.

As the video begins, a person in a hooded sweatshirt can be heard demanding a phone from a 21-year-old woman. She appeared to resist as another person with a hooded sweatshirt joined in. The woman, holding tight to something in her hand, is knocked to the ground as she screams. The pair of people in hooded sweatshirts kicked her while she was down, eventually ripping the item from her hands before jumping into a silver car and driving off.

A handgun was involved, according to the Minneapolis Police incident report.

“It’s just this ever-frequent presence that, as women, we have to be hyper-aware all the time. And even in daylight, in our neighborhood, our own home,” said University of Minnesota junior Trinity Saulsbury, who lives nearby.

An hour and a half earlier on Sunday, a few blocks around the corner — near the intersection of Eighth Street Southeast and 12th Avenue Southeast — the first armed robbery was reported.

Junior Kate LaMonica lives right across the street.

“If they can get into our neighbor’s house, then what’s stopping them from going to our house? You know, I mean, especially armed robbery, like that’s terrifying,” LaMonica reacted.

“We have people in our life who tell us to walk with, like, a friend or something. But, you know, I don’t go to all my classes with, like my roommates, you know?” she added.

That first incident also prompted an alert from the university, which reported that a suspect in a hooded sweatshirt brandished a handgun and demanded a 23-year-old woman’s phone and wallet before taking off in a silver car.

Luke Wittner, now also a junior and the executive vice president of the Interfraternity Council, recalled his first run-in with crime in Dinkytown.

“My first memory on campus was getting punched in the face and getting my wallet stolen, like, 100 feet that way,” he said, pointing toward the interstate from where he stood outside the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house, which is also mere blocks from all three robbery reports.

A couple years after his experience as a freshman, Wittner advocates for student safety in his leadership role on the council, which he said is the largest student organization on campus at roughly 1,600 members.

“College students have a lot on their plate. They have classes, they have work, they got, you know, their jobs in school that’s going on. The last thing that we want to worry about is our safety, but it feels like that’s what we sort of are worrying about day in and day out,” he said.

“And since last summer was so bad, I can’t imagine how it’s gonna be this summer.”

Wittner noted that the University of Minnesota Police Department’s (UMPD) efforts to help Minneapolis Police patrol the area seem to at least be speeding up response times when students call 911.

A university representative said UMPD helped with the response on Sunday and plans to further step up patrols in Dinkytown for the upcoming weekend.

The university is also following up with victims to provide support resources, the spokesperson said.