{
  "id": "2024-03-19-florida-state-university-pensacola-attempted-robbery",
  "slug": "florida-state-university-pensacola-attempted-robbery-2024-03-19",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Florida State University",
    "shortName": "FSU",
    "state": "FL",
    "type": "public-r1",
    "alertSystemName": "FSU Alert",
    "enrollment": 45000
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2024-03-19",
    "type": "robbery",
    "cleryCategory": "timely-warning",
    "headline": "Attempted armed robbery of a student; two of three suspects apprehended the same day",
    "headlinePublic": "Attempted armed robbery of a student; two of three suspects apprehended the same day",
    "summary": "At approximately 11:25 a.m. EDT on March 19, 2024, an [FSU student was approached by a suspect](https://police.fsu.edu/Timely-Warnings) in a four-door white Honda Civic in the 900 block of West Pensacola Street. The suspect brandished a silver handgun and demanded the student's property; the student walked away without complying. [FSUPD issued a Timely Warning](https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-state-police-issue-warning-214317226.html) and, working with the [Tallahassee Police Department's Violent Crimes Unit](https://www.talgov.com/tpd/), apprehended two of three suspects later that day.",
    "outcome": "Two of three suspects apprehended same day. No injuries.",
    "resolution": "confirmed-threat"
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestampApprox": "Afternoon of March 19, 2024",
      "channel": "email",
      "verbatimText": "Timely Warning — Attempted Armed Robbery\n\nThis 'Timely Warning' message is provided as a public service of the FSUPD to comply with the Clery Act, which is a law that requires colleges and universities to disclose criminal incidents that occur within the geographical boundaries of the campus.\n\nOn March 19, 2024, at approximately 11:25 a.m., an attempted armed robbery occurred in the 900 block of West Pensacola Street. The victim, an FSU student, was approached by a suspect in a four-door white Honda Civic. The suspect brandished a silver handgun and demanded the victim's property. The victim was unharmed as he promptly walked away from the suspect without complying with the demands.\n\nThe suspect was described as a white male in his early 20s with tattoos on his neck.\n\nPossible suspects were observed by FSUPD officers fleeing the area in a vehicle, and FSUPD and TPD officers apprehended two of the three suspects without further incident, away from campus. The Tallahassee Police Department was notified and has taken the lead on the investigation.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://police.fsu.edu/Timely-Warnings",
      "sourceDescription": "Florida State University Police Department — Timely Warnings Archive (March 19, 2024)",
      "annotations": [
        "Verbatim narrative recovered from the FSUPD Timely Warnings archive (police.fsu.edu/Timely-Warnings) via cached search snippets",
        "11:25 a.m. EDT on a Tuesday is unusual for an armed robbery, daytime broad-traffic robberies are rare and signal an aggressive offender posture",
        "West Pensacola Street is a major corridor immediately south of FSU's main campus",
        "The victim's choice to walk away rather than comply is the kind of judgment call FSU's safety guidance generally discourages, but the outcome (no injury, eventual arrests) validated the reasoning here",
        "SAFE Connection is FSU's late-night student escort service, a standard inclusion in safety guidance",
        "Apprehending two of three suspects same-day is rare; the white Honda Civic description was the key actionable detail"
      ],
      "characterCount": 1060
    }
  ],
  "context": "[Florida State University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_University) operates one of Florida's largest sworn university police forces, with [FSUPD](https://police.fsu.edu/) maintaining concurrent jurisdiction with the Tallahassee Police Department on much of the campus perimeter. FSU's [Timely Warning policy](https://police.fsu.edu/Timely-Warnings) and [Annual Security and Fire Safety Reports](https://police.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu1426/files/Documents/Main%20Campus%20ASR%202024_TA.pdf) document the standards used to determine when Clery Act crimes warrant a community-wide notification. This [March 19, 2024 attempted armed robbery](https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-state-police-issue-warning-214317226.html) on the [West Pensacola Street corridor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallahassee,_Florida) is notable for two reasons: the daytime timing (11:25 a.m. EDT on a Tuesday) is unusual for an armed robbery, and the same-day apprehension of two of the three suspects illustrates the value of specific vehicle descriptions in regional law-enforcement coordination. The case predates by a year the [April 17, 2025 mass shooting on FSU's main campus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_University_shooting), a different category of incident but one that placed FSU's notification practices under sustained national scrutiny.",
  "keyFindings": [
    "FSUPD's timely-warning template centers Clery compliance attribution and includes specific suspect identifiers",
    "Daytime (11:25 a.m. EDT weekday) armed robbery signals an aggressive offender posture and elevated continuing threat",
    "Same-day apprehension of two of three suspects validates the operational value of vehicle descriptions in alerts",
    "FSU/TPD concurrent jurisdiction is the dominant coordination model for off-campus West Pensacola Street incidents",
    "FSU maintains a public Timely Warnings archive at police.fsu.edu, among the more navigable Clery archives in the SEC"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Florida State police issue warning after attempted armed robbery on campus — Yahoo News",
      "url": "https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-state-police-issue-warning-214317226.html",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "Timely Warnings — Florida State University Police Department",
      "url": "https://police.fsu.edu/Timely-Warnings",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "2024 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report — FSUPD",
      "url": "https://police.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu1426/files/Documents/Main%20Campus%20ASR%202024_TA.pdf",
      "type": "clery-asr"
    },
    {
      "title": "FSU Alert — Florida State University",
      "url": "https://alerts.fsu.edu/",
      "type": "official-archive"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "tags": [
    "robbery",
    "attempted-robbery",
    "armed-robbery",
    "timely-warning",
    "public-r1",
    "off-campus-perimeter",
    "florida",
    "tallahassee",
    "daytime-incident",
    "same-day-arrest"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-05-03",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-07-16",
  "addedBy": "ingestion"
}