The car theft from a campus parking lot on Tuesday, Dec. 6 prompted Campus Safety & Security to send an email to students asking them to help identify the suspects’ pictures. The email, sent on Wednesday, Dec. 7, also included a reminder to lock doors and report any suspicious activity.
“We’re working with the Grinnell Police Department to solve this and a lot of the other cases,” said Director of Campus Safety & Security Stephen Briscoe. “A lot of thefts have been occurring. I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but it seems like it’s going to be a record year.”
Willa Akey ’15 of Loose 1st and her roommate had a wallet and camera stolen from their room on Thanksgiving Day. She said that they left the door unlocked for only a couple of hours.
“[That the thefts happened] was disappointing,” Akey said. “It’s frustrating that people would so something like this.”
Matt Lewis ’14 of Read 1st and his roommates were also victims of theft over the break.
“We left for break and thought we had locked the door,” Lewis said. “But we ended up not actually locking it. The door was open when we got back, and the TV and Wii had been knocked to on the ground. The thief took about 20 bucks.”
Security believes that many thefts from the semester have gone unreported. Lewis’ roommate Quinn Underriner ’14 believes that students should not be afraid to report any theft.
“We’ve been spreading awareness about the thefts and trying to make sure that people know what’s been going on,” Underriner said. “It’s important to make sure that everyone feels safe coming forward about things that have been stolen from them—even if those things are potentially incriminating, you can still communicate.”
Michael Cermak ’14 who knows Lewis and Underrinner as well as another student who was robbed on Halloween night, can’t believe how often the break-ins seem to happen.
“It shocked me, cause I would never expect that,” he said. “Especially since it wasn’t just that [Lewis and Underinner] were robbed, but from what I know the people who robbed them just trashed their room. That’s even more surprising to me.”
But Cermak has taken some precautions to keep himself protected.
“I’m more worried, I don’t leave my computer in visible space when you open the door anymore.”
Campus Security stresses the importance of community awareness to combat the thefts.
“Grinnell has always been an open community, but we have to realize that we are not all that separate from the overall society, and that crime is associated with society,” Briscoe said. “Students should lock their valuables, and if anyone has any information they should either call or email me.”
additional reporting by Michael Schoelz
