A 14-year-old Berkeley High School student was chased down, beaten, and robbed by three masked teenagers just two blocks from campus, police say, in an attack that unfolded in broad after-school hours along a quiet residential stretch of downtown Berkeley.
According to The Berkeley Scanner, the student had just left school and was walking east on Allston Way when a teenager on an e-scooter approached him and threatened to beat him up. The student fled, but the scooter rider and two other teenagers confronted and followed him, police told the outlet. The chase ended on the 1900 block of Channing Way, roughly two blocks south of the high school's Allston Way campus, where the three teens caught up with him.
Police said the group knocked the student to the ground, then punched and kicked him before taking his wallet and other belongings. All three attackers appeared to be between 14 and 16 years old, wore ski masks and dark clothing, and ran off in an unknown direction once the robbery was over, according to the same report. Berkeley police have not released additional details about the case.
A Location Close to Campus, but Off School Grounds
The 1900 block of Channing Way sits in a residential corridor parallel to Allston Way, which runs along the northern edge of Berkeley High's campus between Milvia Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, according to a Downtown Berkeley Association map of the district. That proximity places the attack just outside the boundary where school-based safety resources typically apply, even though the victim had left campus only minutes earlier. It was not reported whether school communications alerted parents or students to the incident.
The attack echoes an earlier case flagged by The Berkeley Scanner, which reported that a Berkeley High student was robbed at gunpoint during a dice game behind the Berkeley Main Post Office on Allston Way in February 2025 — directly across the street from campus. Police reviewed surveillance and Flock license plate cameras during that earlier investigation, the outlet noted.
Campus Security Relies on a Single Armed Officer
Berkeley High currently relies on a hybrid safety model built around a BUSD-employed security team and a single armed Berkeley Police Department school resource officer, Officer Lino Guananja, who joined the campus in fall 2024, according to the Berkeley High Jacket. The district has previously debated expanding or eliminating that SRO position following student safety surveys, the student paper reported.
That arrangement has drawn scrutiny beyond staffing debates. In April, a lawsuit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court alleging that a BPD school resource officer and BUSD safety personnel assaulted and falsely arrested a student on campus in March 2025, as reported by Berkeleyside. The suit alleges civil rights violations and a failure to report child abuse, adding to ongoing tension over how campus safety is handled at the school.
Robbery Numbers Are Down, but Not for Everyone
The attack comes even as Berkeley's overall robbery numbers have fallen sharply. Berkeley Police Department data showed citywide robberies dropped 20%, from 221 in 2024 to 177 in 2025, Berkeleyside reported, continuing a multi-year decline in property and violent crime, though total violent crimes ticked up 2% during that same period. Berkeley has logged about 100 robbery reports so far this year, compared with roughly 110 in the same period last year, according to BPD data cited by The Berkeley Scanner, down from an average of about one robbery a day before the pandemic.
The city's numbers track a broader statewide pattern: California's violent crime fell 5.3% in 2024, with robbery rates dropping 7.5% year-over-year, per the Public Policy Institute of California, even though the state's violent crime rate remains 9.8% above 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Mid-2025 Berkeley data also showed a split trend locally — robberies fell 27% over the first seven months of the year even as misdemeanor thefts under $950 rose 9% citywide, Berkeleyside reported, prompting targeted enforcement that yielded 81 retail theft arrests earlier that year.
A Recurring Pattern Near Campus
Robberies involving Berkeley High-connected students near the downtown campus are not new. In May 2019, four Berkeley Unified School District students, three of them from Berkeley High, were arrested after a laptop robbery at a café on Shattuck Square near the campus YMCA, according to Berkeleyside's reporting at the time, which noted that school administrators issued campus notifications following those arrests.
Whoever attacked the 14-year-old this week fled on foot in an unknown direction, and it remains unclear whether investigators have identified the teenagers involved. Berkeley police have tools available for tracking suspects who flee robbery scenes, including the city's network of 51 Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras, which the City Council extended for another year in May, as detailed by The Berkeley Scanner. It is not known whether that system played any role in this case.
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