Campus Police and the University Transportation Department are encouraging students who hold parking permits in the storage parking lots to utilize better safety measures when parking their vehicles there.
Capt. Jon Barnwell of Campus Police said students’ vehicles in the storage parking lots, including the Varsity storage lot and Centennial Campus storage lot, have been big targets for breaking and entering.
He said students are leaving valuable items in their vehicles, which prompts thieves to break and enter the vehicles and steal items.
“A person doesn’t just randomly smash a window hoping there’s something they can take,” Barnwell said. “There’s something that catches their eye that makes them want to do that. So one thing we can do to reduce this is to not leave anything in the vehicle.”
According to Barnwell, the students who hold parking permits for the storage lots,usually freshmen, should take more responsibility when parking their cars in these specific lots.
“We see that it is primarily freshmen permit holders [in the storage lots], andthese freshmen come from all over the state and may not understand what exactly this environment is about,” Barnwell said.
Students who park in the storage lots should take measures to make sure they arelocking their doors, taking valuable items out of the vehicle and not leaving themin sight, making sure items are secure in the trunk of the car and knowing the busschedule from the storage lots, Barnwell said.
“We are looking to get permanent signs placed in the parking lots to remind students to lock their doors, report suspicious activity to police immediately,” Barnwell said. “[Campus Police] has coordinated with Transportation to emphasize those things on the Wolfline busses as well.”
Campus Police and the Transportation Department are also making an effort to enhance the safety of the physical environment of the parking lots, according to Barnwell.
“We partnered up with Department of Transportation to make some recommendations on everything from increasing riding to cutting back shrubbery and landscape changes,” Barnwell said. “We’re in negotiations with that and of course we provide them with ongoing transit with what’s going on in those parking lots.”
Barnwell said the biggest thing students can do is take responsibility and help tonot make their vehicles a target.
“It’s important to understand that we will do everything we possible can, but weneed the students’ help by minimizing the opportunity for them being victims,”Barnwell said. “[Students] need to understand to use common sense and not leave an iPod on the bottom of the floor because with the sight of those items, people are willing to smash the windows and take it.”
He said students also need to realize what items of value are because something as small as a CD notebook could prompt someone to break and enter the car.
To communicate this safety message to students who hold these parking permits,Barnwell said Campus Police and the Transportation department have been e-mailing the students who hold the parking permits, as well as utilizing media outlets on the Wolf Facts cable access channel.
“It’s a multi-faceted approach primarily because breaking and entering is our nextmost serious crime outside of theft,” Barnwell said.
