OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – UW-Oshkosh Officials are saying that an armed robbery took place on campus early Wednesday morning.
Officials say at around 8:30 AM two men with handguns robbed an ATM inside the Reeve Memorial Union building.
Authorities are actively searching for the suspects after they drove away from campus in a vehicle.
The Fox Valley Technical College Riverside Campus in Oshkosh briefly went into lockdown and asked everyone to avoid the campus, while UW-Oshkosh never entered into a lockdown.
UW-Oshkosh Police Chief Kurt Leibold explains why they didn’t take that step.
“We knew immediately that these suspects had fled campus and were no longer a danger to this campus,” he says.
If they had remained nearby, it would have been a different story.
“If we had felt it was necessary we would have told the students and the staff to shelter in place, which means remain where you are or get to where you’re going to be,” explains Chief Leibold.
Some students remain disappointed in that decision, though.
“Especially with everything going on in the world right now, I thought that they would take our safety into consideration a little more,” says student Serena Lenius.
“I just think that we need to take student safety into consideration more,” says student Ellie Saniter. “I don’t want to have to text my mom at nine in the morning saying that I’m walking to class while there is a gunman on campus.”
Campus police has indicated that they’ve received a good description of both suspects.
“We’ve been receiving information from witnesses who are giving us good information,” he says.
One suspect has been described as a white male wearing a black hoodie with blue jeans, a gray hooded sweatshirt, and a brown ski mask. The second suspect is being described as an African-American male wearing dark clothing with red and white colored Addidas shoes.
Both suspects are believed to be in their 20’s and witnesses even got a pretty good look at the vehicle the pair drove off in.
“The vehicle is a tan four-door, possibly Buick, late 90’s vehicle,” says Chief Leibold.
An additional suspect was driving the vehicle.
Students and the public are not thought to be in danger as this authorities believe this was a targeted incident.
Officials believe the suspects are fleeing towards Madison after a preliminary search turned up nothing.
Officials stated that the same company’s carriers have been targeted three times since September.
