A suspect robbed a female Kansas University freshman at gunpoint Monday night in a residence hall parking garage, leading to a car chase that ended blocks away on a dead-end street.

The robbery, which happened about 8:50 p.m. in the parking garage for the all-female Gertrude Sellards Pearson and Corbin residence halls, was at least the third violent crime in the past year in KU residence-hall parking lots.

KU police have said they plan to install surveillance cameras in the GSP-Corbin and Daisy Hill lots to make them safer. But the cameras aren’t in place yet, said Capt. Schuyler Bailey, a KU Public Safety Office spokesman.

The victim of Monday night’s robbery, whom police said lived in either GSP or Corbin, parked on the lower level of the garage and was walking north when a male suspect approached her, brandished a gun and demanded her keys and backpack, Bailey said.

She gave him both items. As he got into her car, his gun fired once, but it wasn’t pointed at her, and no one was injured, Bailey said.

KU police put out a radio call to find the vehicle, saying the suspect inside was believed to be armed and dangerous. Lawrence Police spotted the car at Sixth and Iowa streets, then began a pursuit that ended when the suspect drove into the dead-end west of 12th and Indiana streets, Bailey said. As of 10:30 p.m., police hadn’t made any arrests but had taken the driver into custody for questioning, Bailey said.

They also were questioning a woman who was in the car when police stopped it but wasn’t in it at the time of the robbery.

Abby Christensen and Leslie Dillon, Corbin Hall roommates, said Monday night outside the residence hall that they didn’t feel safe walking back to the hall after they park their cars at night. Residents often must walk from overflow parking at Memorial Stadium or from another nearby lot, they said.

6News video: KU student robbed at gunpoint

“Everyone’s really scared,” Christensen said. “We want to take our cars home. It’s really inconvenient parking here anyway.”

On Oct. 3, 2003, a man wearing a ski mask and holding a knife grabbed a female student as she walked in the Lied Center parking lot, which is used as overflow parking for the oversold student lots on Daisy Hill.

In February, a man waved a knife and threatened a female student in the GSP-Corbin garage. She wasn’t injured.