East Lansing Robbery Suspects Found

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East Lansing police are investigating a couple different robberies off campus and now have suspects in custody for at least one of them.

Some students confronted the suspects and helped police catch them.

A Saturday night party on campus isn’t anything unusual

Michigan State University Student Drew Fortier says, “ there was a good amount of people here and there were three guys here that we didn’t really know.”

Supply chain management senior Drew Fortier hosted the party. He and his friends were having a good time until someone noticed something strange going on.

About 1- 1:30 am one of my friends came up to me and was like hey Drew your wallets in the bathroom and all of your cards are in the toilet,” says Fortier.

A debit card and 120 dollars in cash were gone. Along with his car keys and a brand new pair of Nike Air Jordans.

“I was pretty mad at that point,” says Fortier

Those at the party speculated it was one of the three that nobody recognized. A friend knew where the guys had gone so they ran after them.

Fortier says, “we came up to them and we said hey did you guys steal our stuff. They’re like why would you accuse us of that. We told them you were the only people we didn’t know at the party and nobody else has left.

Duran street is where Fortier and his friends confronted the suspects. One of the suspects threatened them saying he wasn’t messing around, reached behind his back and then asked if they wanted to die tonight.

“So at that point when he said that I figured they might have had a gun. We’re like lets just leave it’s not worth it so we left and we filed a police report,” says Fortier.

They saw the suspects again the next morning and called the police.

Fortier says, “we immediately identified them and that’s when they had them in cuffs. “

While it may seem heroic at the time, police do not encourage confronting suspects.

Florene McGothian MSU Police Public information Officer says, “that’s an automatic reaction but you don’t know if that person has a gun if they have a knife if they have any type of weapon. You don’t know if anyone else was with them. They might be waiting to attack you. “

They also say call immediately with a description.

“What where going to be looking for you to tell us is about what height the person was what their race was if they were walking or if they were in a car. What direction they went in so were going to be look for those types of details from you,” says McGothian.

This is not the first time this has occurred recently

Tyler Stewart says, “we had some friends over just hanging out in the kitchen.”

Economics major Tyler Stewart was robbed a block away from Fortier on Bailey street at his home during a Saturday night gathering.

“one of our friends went upstairs to use the bathroom and she saw some people in one of the bedrooms,” says Stewart.

They confronted the suspects, but they ran off. Later those at the party noticed car keys, money and a debit card were missing.

But it was never reported.

Stewart says, “we didn’t have a good enough description of them to think we should call the police.”

Stewart believes there maybe a connection with Fortier robbery.

“It could be the same people that robbed our friends down the street and had we called the police it would’ve given more validity to their story,” says Stewart.

Neither Fortier nor Stewart were able to retrieve their lost items.

Though police have made arrests, no charges have been filed yet as the investigation continues.

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