SAN ANTONIO – Tenants at an apartment complex near the University of Texas San Antonio are feeling scared after a rash of thefts — at least some at gunpoint — happened over the weekend.
The San Antonio Police Department logged nine calls for service Sunday morning for burglaries, robberies, and vehicle thefts at Tetro Student Village, an apartment complex near Babcock Road and Loop 1604 that caters to college students.
Police arrested a 23-year-old man for four counts of aggravated robbery and one for evading arrest. Although one victim told KSAT they had seen a second person and some tenants had heard several people may be involved, KSAT was unable to confirm with SAPD if there were other suspects.
One of the victims, a UTSA sophomore who asked not to be named, said he was sleeping at about 5 a.m. Sunday morning when he felt someone staring at him. When he opened his eyes, there was a stranger in his apartment.
The man told him, “you’re good,” and slammed his bedroom door, the student said.
The student went downstairs to grab one of his roommates. But when they returned upstairs, the intruder pointed a handgun at them and said, “I’m not playing with y’all.”
The student says the robber told them he was “cool and that we’d be friends if this wasn’t happening” before taking the magazine out of the gun and accidentally firing a round through a bedroom window.
“‘Oh, let y’all’s ears, like, stop ringing,'” the student recalled the man saying. “And he’s like, ‘See, I’m a really cool guy. Like, that was an accident.'”
The student said the thief made away with an Xbox, shoes and clothing. Another one of his roommates, who was not present during the robbery, told KSAT his car had been stolen, too, using the spare keys from his bedroom.
Fortunately, it was recovered outside of another building in the complex – the same building where a UTSA junior told KSAT he opened his bedroom door to what he thought was a knocking roommate.
“And just from there, I just got a gun in my face with a flashlight, and they’re just like, ‘Give me your stuff. Give me all your stuff,'” he said.
The student at the second apartment said there were two men. He said he didn’t want to give over his laptop, but “that’s when he put the gun right here to my forehead, and he’s just like, ‘Give me — give me everything.’ I was like, ‘Man, just take it.'”
He said the thieves left his laptop but made off with an iPad, Xbox, shoes, cash, and his keys.
Victims at both apartments said their garage doors were open – one of them because it was broken – and one of them said their door from his garage into the apartment was unlocked, too.
Victims from both apartments identified the man with the gun as Felton Brady III, whom San Antonio Police arrested after spotting him in the parking lot and chasing him to a nearby McDonald’s.
Bexar County court records show he was booked on four counts of aggravated robbery and one count of evading arrest or detention. As of Monday evening, he was still booked in the Bexar County jail, with his total bail set at $302,500.
A spokesperson from Landmark Properties, the property management company for Tetro Student Village, responded to KSAT’s emailed request for comment on Tuesday – a day after this story originally ran.
In an emailed statement, the spokesman said the complex would increase patrols of a third-party courtesy service and that management team had also increased foot patrols of interior and exterior common areas. Garage door and gate repairs are also underway, she said.
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