Lacrosse Team Robbed in Florida
By Mark FullerMaroon-News StaffThree members of the Colgate Men’s Lacrosse team were robbed at gunpoint over Spring Break in their Florida motel room. The team was spending the night in a motel off the highway in an area outside of Orlando when the incident occurred.Around 12:30 a.m., sophomore Rob Ryan was standing outside of his room talking on the phone with the door open. “I turned around and saw two black guys about ten yards from the door pointing guns at me and telling me to get on the ground,” Ryan said. The student quickly ran into the motel room but was unable to close the door before the men caught up and entered the room. “The two guys came into our room, masked, each with guns,” sophomore teammate Andrew Summersgill said. “One of the guns was an automatic weapon, and one guy came and put the gun in my face.” Brandishing their weapons and screaming at the students, the two muggers told the students that they had already killed that night and were ready to kill again. “They were basically holding guns to our heads and telling us to give them everything or they would kill us,” Ryan said. The two muggers split up and began asking for money. “One guy stood at the door with his gun drawn, surveying the room, while the other guy screamed and yelled at us” Summersgill said. The men demanded the players’ wallets, which were emptied.The two muggers then forced the students into the bathroom and closed the door. “He told us we would get shot if we left the bathroom,” Summersgill said. The students reported hearing the men rifle through their luggage while they waited in the bathroom, unable to leave or even call for help. The intruders apparently left without another word after rummaging through the luggage.”After about 10 minutes we heard a voice,” Ryan said. The voices were those of their teammates; the sound of their friends prompted the students to call 911 from their cell phones. The police arrived shortly thereafter and found that the muggers had fled the motel. “They asked for everything we had, but really only ended up taking our money,” Ryan said. The incident ended quickly but left everyone a bit shaken, though fortunately, no one was hurt.Teammate first-year Andrew Bevan was in the room as well when the robbery occurred.