Leverett Junior Mugged Saturday

A junior from Leverett House was robbed at gunpoint while walking down Plympton Street at approximately 8:30 p.m. Saturday night, according to the victim.

The perpetrator, described by the victim as a young white man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, threatened the student with a “realistic-looking BB gun.”

A suspect was arrested later that night by the Cambridge Police Department near Au Bon Pain, according to Steven G. Catalano, the spokesperson for the Harvard University Police Department.

The victim, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said he was returning to his room in Leverett and was in front of old Quincy House when he was approached from behind by the perpetrator.

The robber petitioned the student for money, and the situation escalated when the student refused, according to the victim.

“He stuck one hand into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out what appeared to be the handle of a gun,” the victim said. The victim said he did not know that it was a BB gun until later that night.

The student said he then handed over all the cash in his wallet. The robber allegedly left in the direction that he came, running toward Mt. Auburn Street.

“Our officers stopped a suspect near Au Bon Pain, but [the Cambridge Police Department] ultimately made the arrest,” wrote Catalano in an e-mailed statement.

The robbery occurred outside HUPD’s jurisdiction as it took place on a city street, so the suspect will be handled by the Cambridge police, according to Catalano.

The Cambridge Police Department did not return requests for comment over the weekend.

According to CPD’s third quarter crime analysis report, 112 robberies occurred in Cambridge between Jan. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2008, the latest dates for which information is currently available, 89 of which were street robberies. During this time, there were 53 cases of larceny from a person in Harvard Square.

There were 161 robberies in Cambridge in 2007, according to the police department’s annual report. Of these cases, 120 were street robberies.

“As for Harvard, our robbery numbers stayed the same from 2007 to 2008,” wrote Catalano in an e-mailed statement.

—Staff writer Emily J. Hogan can be reached at ejhogan@fas.harvard.edu.