The incident happened in the 1300 block of North 15th Street around 6 a.m., Philadelphia police said. Two men wearing hoods and masks and armed with handguns entered the home where 11 youths — a mix of men and women between the ages of 20 and 22 — were sleeping, police said. The armed men then gathered the occupants in the basement and proceeded to rob them. “Overall it was just a violation experience,” one of the victims told reporters outside their home. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep here again,” said another woman. Some of the women — all elderly — who were robbed said the men went from room to room, waking some of them. Then they had the women wake the others. The men spent about an hour in the house, going through the women’s rooms. The men joked with each other and acted casually during the robbery, the victims said. The women told NBC10 the men were looking for drugs, but they didn’t have any. The robbers took credit and debit cards, cellphones and the keys to a silver 2015 Lincoln MKZ, police said. Residents said the robbers also took cash and broke a television. Investigators said the thieves drove off in Lincoln with Pennsylvania tag KMF-1560. The women who were robbed said the armed thieves made each of them open their phones and log out of iCloud and remove their passwords. The women said they used laptops to contact loved ones to call 911 after being locked in the basement. The women said the gate outside their home is broken and the repair order came only after Friday’s robbery. The area is outside of Temple’s normal patrol area, according to a statement from the university in North Philadelphia. Temple and police said none of the people in the home were injured. “Most importantly, no students were hurt or injured during this incident, which will continue to be investigated by the Philadelphia Police Department,” Temple’s statement to NBC10 said. The university added: “The safety of the Temple community remains the university’s top priority.” The women said they heard of a similar incident happening to other students recently. They told each other that this seemed to be their time. “You go to college and it’s supposed to be a fun time where you can have fun with your friends and finally be away from home and have independence,” said Nina, a senior. “Not only to have someone invade your home and your privacy, but to wake you up from your sleep … that makes things dirty.”
