CLEVELAND — Katherine Ives says she was just following her daily routine on Wednesday, Dec. 19. She remembers getting home at her off-campus apartment early morning. She parked in the garage as she does every day.
But when she made it inside her apartment building, she says she noticed a man standing in the stairwell.
“He asked me, how to get into the building. I explained it and I kept walking up the stairs. I didn’t think anything of it,” she recalled. “He was wearing a ski mask, but with COVID and everything, I really didn't think anything of it. Everyone wears masks nowadays.”
When she got to the first platform of the stairwell, the same guy who was seemingly asking for help, grabbed her at gunpoint.
“He had the gun pointed at my stomach and said, Give me your keys. I didn't question, and I handed all my keys over. He took my wallet too,” Ives said.
After a few minutes of talking with the guy asking for Ive’s ATM pins, he left and drove away in her car.
Though, not without warning.
“He didn't take my phone thankfully, but he said, don't call the police. I know where you live and I ran up the stairs as soon as I kind of felt like he was going the other direction,” Ives said.
Ives called police immediately. She says investigators were able to track her car down thanks to a tracker in her wallet. Yet, no arrests, in this case, have been made.
Ives is now the fourth victim in a string of recent armed carjackings in the Little Italy area. Cleveland police believe each of them, which includes all female victims, are connected. The young Case Western Reserve University student says she’s thankful she wasn't hurt.
“It was just really weird having that happen somewhere where I felt like I should have been safe,” she said. “I'm glad I just gave it to him, even if it would have turned out that you would have just run away. It was worth not fighting,”
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