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Security sees rise in campus crime

by Abby Rapoport

When Ryan Kartheiser '09 couldn't find his iPod, he assumed he had misplaced it, until his neighbor Wyatt Montague '08 also found his missing. Only then did both realize they had been robbed.

Since the beginning of the semester there have been eight different incidents of theft, ranging from a laptop to a rice cooker. According to Security Supervisor Amy Coleman, much of the crime was due to careless security. Many crime victims, like Kartheiser, left their door unlocked when gone.

Security is working with the Grinnell Police Department to create a list of possible suspects. According to Coleman, the authorities will look for patterns that may lead them to the culprits This happened two years ago, when Security caught two thieves inside a student's room.

Coleman attributed many of the thefts to a feeling of trust on campus. "It's generally a friendly campus, so people let their guard down sometimes," she said.

But more troubling to Coleman are the incidents in which the thief pried off window screens and forcibly entered the room, as well as the sheer number of incidents. In several cases, the students burglarized had locked their doors, but it did them little good. "And I can't think of a time we've had eight [thefts] in one month," she said.

These were not the first incidents of premeditated crime. Miriam Stanton '05 had her laptop stolen during the last week of classes last year. She had left her laptop in the top of Bucksbaum, turned out the lights and hidden it in the corner of the room. She was gone less than 20 minutes, but when she came back, the computer was gone, a sign that someone must have waited for her to leave the room.

Stanton said security should be more willing to send out crime bulletins. "They were really hesitant about sending an all-campus e-mail," she said.

According to Coleman, security notifies the campus whenever there's a need for heightened security. Because eight crimes in less than a month was overwhelming, security has sent out multiple bulletins to students.

Kartheiser agreed that notification is important. "I didn't think there was [any crime]. That's why I didn't lock my door," he said.

For Stanton, the crime also affected how her friends thought about security. "Once my friends knew about it, they started taking their laptop everywhere," she said.

Stanton, who lived off campus last year, found an easier way to secure her computer: locking it down. "It would be pretty easy to get the community locks," she said.

Coleman said students would be even safer from crimes if they always locked their doors. "[Students] should lock their doors and be secure, whenever they leave their rooms," she said.

But this is of little help to Kartheiser, who will not buy a new iPod. "I don't want it stolen again," he said.

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