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February 18, 2008 —
A track bell that is used in the Ryder Center during indoor meets was reported missing by an employee on Feb. 8. The bell is used to signal the last lap during a meet.
The bell actually went missing around 3 p.m. the day before.
"Maybe we can get that back if somebody has it in their resident hall," University Police Chief Ron Trepkowski said. "They do have a lot of not only college meets, but they have quite a few high school meets over there."
A Nintendo Wii and games were reported stolen on Feb. 8 from Living Center South. Guitar Hero 3 and a controller for PlayStation 3 were also reported stolen from LCS on Feb. 13. The PS3 game system was left alone.
The Wii theft does not currently have any connection with the game systems reported stolen last semester.
"We haven't made any connection with this one at all," Trepkowski said. "We were working on some connections with some of the X-boxes, because we had several X-boxes stolen."
The cases involving the stolen X-boxes are still open.
"We're still kind of working on that a little bit," Trepkowski said. "We had some weird stuff happening, in that somebody had an X-box taken and then there was another one replaced with the one that was taken."
"There is some suspicion that there were some people stealing these things and taking the good ones and selling them, and maybe if they got an old one, they give it back," Trepkowski said.
The game systems have been the most valuable items stolen on campus.
"I don't know what we can tell the students to do, other than to lock them up in their bedroom, because a lot of the time they leave them out in the main living area," Trepkowski said. "We haven't been able to connect anybody to these yet."
Students can also take their game systems or any other valuable electronics to the University Police station and have their license number etched into the item, a service called Operation Identification.
The winter season has increased the number of slip and fall reports on campus.
"We've gotten quite a few slip and falls of people," Trepkowski said. "They're not necessarily hurt."
While it isn't necessary to report a slip and fall if you aren't injured, it is encouraged.
"What it does is, at least, it puts the University on notice that 'hey we got people slipping and falling, is there a problem?'" Trepkowski said. "We encourage people to report it if they think they are injured at all because if they are slightly injured and in a week from now they really notice pain and they go to the doctor and say what 'hey this is what happened, it's probably due that.'"
Injury reports like a slip and fall can impact an employee's insurance, but is also important for students so there is a record of what happened.
Reports were filed for missing money and a missing wallet at two different locations on Feb. 13.
The first incidents happened in the Ryder Center, where two men reported money missing from their lockers. The victims were an alumnus and a student.
"It was men's locker room B, opened to the public," Trepkowski said. "They both said they had locks on them, which is really kind of strange."
According to Trepkowski, when money is reported stolen it is usually because the person either forgot to lock their locker or they didn't lock their stuff up at all.
Trepkowski suggests that anyone using the Ryder Center should try to limit the amount of money they take with them.
The second incident occured in the Cardinal Cage and involved a student who said that he set his wallet down with his coat and cell phone to play ping pong. When he was done his wallet was gone.