Author: Laura Bertocci
Two student vehicles were broken into on middle campus near Rangeview Residence Hall on April 10 and 11, bringing the total number of car burglaries in 2010 to five, Director of Campus Safety Hollis Nieto said. The two car owners reported leaving their cars parked and locked. Upon their return, both discovered unlocked doors and missing items, although neither car sustained damage. Stolen items included a purse, a wallet, credit cards, California driver’s licenses, $55 in cash and a GPS.Campus Safety would not release the names of the car owners because the two students declined to comment.
“Quite honestly, we don’t know who did this,” Nieto said. “My guess is it’s young people wandering through the campus because of the items that were stolen [cash and electronics]. They’re there to get a quick dollar.”
According to Nieto, one student left her Honda Accord parked on Rangeview Avenue at 6:30 p.m. on April 9, and when she came back the next day at 1:30 p.m., she found that her doors were closed but unlocked. Her things had been rummaged through and items were missing.
The other student left her Honda Civic parked on South Bird Street in front of Bell-Young Residence Hall on April 8 at 11 p.m. She returned to the car on April 11 at 9:15 p.m. and found her driver’s side door unlocked and GPS missing, Nieto said.The National Insurance Crime Bureau statistics state that, in 2006, the Honda Civic was the number one stolen car in America. The Honda Accord was the second.
In the event of a car burglary, Campus Safety advises students to report crimes to the LAPD and gives vouchers to students to take cabs to the nearest police station. According to Nieto, when a report is made, the LAPD analyzes patterns occurring on a larger scale. She said that the LAPD can recover stolen items and match them to descriptions given by the victim.
“However, that is kind of rare,” said Nieto. “Usually these items are gone pretty fast . . . there haven’t been any developments [in the recent burglary cases] and that’s not unusual.”
The April car break-ins have caught the attention of students.
“[Rangeview] is right next to the gate,” said Alex Robles (senior), a resident of Rangeview Hall. “People from the community come wandering in all the time. I’m a little concerned.” Robles said this was not the first time he had heard of a car being burglarized.
“Car burglaries are the most frequent crime in our neighborhood,” said Nieto. “It’s a crime of opportunity. People look down into the car, they see it and they go ‘aha!’ and that’s when the crime occurs.”
According to the Campus Safety Web site, there were three auto burglaries on campus and in the immediate campus safety escort area in 2009. In 2008, there were 17; in 2007, there were 10; and in 2006, there were 36.
Over 10 years ago, Campus Safety used to keep the gates at the perimeters of the campus open all day, which resulted in high rates of crime, said Nieto. Nieto noticed that the campus experienced a decrease in crime rates when Campus Safety started closing the gates during certain hours to reduce traffic. “I like the way that the stats are going, but they [car burglary rates] are still much higher than anything else,” Nieto said.Nieto stated that the automobile burglary is a repressible crime, meaning there is something the victim can do to prevent it from occurring. Campus Safety encourages people to never leave property in plain sight. In both of the recent cases, items were left exposed on car seats and GPS mounting devices were still on the dashboard.
“We all do this at some point in time, and we all need to be smarter about it so that we don’t become victims of crime,” she said.
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