By Emily Senger
The June Campus Security report indicates that summer is officially here with an almost empty campus. This means the Campus Security officers should be able to sit back and relax, if it wasn’t and a marked rise in the number of break and enters on campus.
“There are less people, which means fewer concerns,” explained Campus Security Manager Lanny Fritz. “Break and enters during the summer months are more common in the whole city with school out. There is also a greater likelihood of not being detected on campus.”
Four break and enters were reported in June. The human performance lab was broken into twice. In the first incident, the perpetrator broke a window and removed two boxes of hockey sticks. In the second incident, the perpetrator entered the lab through the ceiling and removed $90 from a cabinet. Both incidents were recorded on closed circuit television and the same suspect is believed responsible for both incidents.
Another break and enter occurred at NUTV where an undisclosed sum of money was removed from the office.
Cash was also removed from the Administration building in a separate break and enter incident. The suspect was identified by the CCTV and matters were turned over to Calgary police.
“He’s not been caught but he has been identified,” said Fritz.
“Closed circuit television is what we call the ‘soft side’ of security,” explained Fritz. “We have 15 high mount cameras that can scan 85 percent of campus. We can and do identify culprits from time to time.”
In another incident, a Honda Civic was stolen from lot 12 and later located in the McMahon Stadium parking lot. The Civic had sustained considerable damage. Fritz recommends that students parking on campus use anti-theft bars on their steering wheels as a deterrent to potential thieves.
“We park 8,000 vehicles per day here and off campus, criminals see us as a potential target. [Anti-theft bars] are extremely difficult to break and thieves aren’t interested in breaking steering wheels,” said Fritz.
In an event that could have had potential for major annoyance, a fire alarm was activated in Kinesiology B during a convocation ceremony. Luckily, it was a false alarm and the 5,000 or so people who were in the gym did not have to be evacuated.
“There was a surge in power and we were able to easily and quickly tell that there was no fire,” said Fritz.