A Capitol Hill woman says she was robbed at gunpoint earlier this afternoon by a man who chased her down, tackled her and stole her iPod.

Ashley Wolff, a 24-year-old Capitol Hill resident, says she was walking on 15th Ave between E Prospect Street and E Ward at about 3pm when an African-American man in his late teens or early twenties approached her, tapped her on the shoulder and asked her for change for a dollar.

When Wolff said she didn't have change, the man demanded her iPod Nano. When she refused, he pulled out a black handgun. Wolff screamed and took off running, but the man chased her down the block and tackled her to the ground. The man took her iPod and ran off.

Bystanders called 911. "There were a lot of witnesses," Wolff says. "There were kids playing out there on the sidewalk."

Police and got a description of the man, Wolff says, and paramedics treated her at the scene. "I have a big four inch scrape on my back that’s pretty nasty," she says. "I’m bruised and scraped up, but other than that I’m fine."

Wolff says she generally feels safe in Seattle, but says she's shocked by the amount of force used in the robbery. "I never thought anyone would come after my iPod with a gun," she says. "It’s an iPod."

Unfortunately, cases like Wolff's are becoming increasingly more common in Seattle. According to statistics released by the Seattle Police Department late last month, robberies have been on the rise since 2007. Department records say that in 2007, there were 1,522 robberies in Seattle. In 2008, that number rose 6% to 1,612. However, in the first four months of 2009, police say there were 570 robberies, up a whopping 25% from the same period last year.

In an interview with The Stranger earlier this month, Interim Police Chief John Diaz pointed to "job losses and the economy" as a significant contributing factors to the rise in crime in Seattle, where burglaries and assaults involving weapons have also increased 10% and 17%, respectively.

Seattle police were busy this weekend. In addition to a fatal shooting in SoDo and a large melee outside of a party in Greenwood, officer were also called to investigate an attempted rape and kidnapping in South Seattle and a shootout in Pioneer Square involving a stolen SPD handgun.

A woman in her late-teens called police from the South Seattle Goodwill Friday night to report that two men had kidnapped her from a bus stop and attempted to rape her.

According to a police report, the woman was waiting for a bus near Rainier Ave S and S Dearborn at about 8pm when two men approached her from behind and "covered her eyes with an unknown object."

The report says the men then forced her into a vehicle and drove off. The car stopped near 10th ave S and S Dearborn and the men attempted to take off the woman's pants. The woman told police she managed to open the car door and escape. The woman fled to the nearby Goodwill and called 911.

The woman told police one of the men was white and the other was black, but was unable to provide any other details.

Hours later, SPD gang unit detectives were called to the scene of a drive-by shooting near Occidental Park in Pioneer Square. According to a police report, a witness called police at about 1:30 AM report that "two vehicles had crashed and two people were shooting at each other" near the park.

At the scene, a man in his mid-twenties told police that he was climbing into his truck, which was parked near 1st Ave S and S Main St, when he saw another car coming at him. The other vehicle hit his truck and sped off.

It's unclear from the report when exactly shot were fired, but the report says officers recovered several bullet casings and a .40 caliber handgun in an alley. According to the report, the handgun was an SPD issued weapon, stolen two months ago. It appears no one was injured in the shooting.