Car burglaries increase
Some students feel TCU police aren’t doing enough
By Sarah Krebs
Staff Reporter

The TCU Police are working overtime shifts using binoculars and night vision video equipment and are reemphasizing to patrollers to be alert during prime vehicle break-in times, Detective Kelly Ham said Thursday.

From Dec. 1, 2002 to March 2, there were 36 reported car break-ins. The parking lot with the highest number of burglaries was the Coliseum parking lot with a total of 10 break-ins.

The majority of the break-ins happen from 4 to 11 p.m., but TCU does not have enough officers to cover all of the lots during that time span, so they try to patrol as much as possible, Ham said.

Car break-ins are difficult to investigate because the burglar commits the crime in a matter of seconds and because the objects stolen are usually sold to pawn stores or are traded on the black market, Ham said.

“I’ve pulled up on them and if you had batted an eye you’d have missed them,” Ham said. “They smash the window, grab what they want and they are out of there. So if you are looking left going down a parking lot and they are doing it on the right, by the time you look to the right all you see is busted glass and they’re already gone.”

Some students said they think nothing is done about car burglaries on campus and the TCU Police are only doing paperwork and not enough to prevent the crimes.

Cliff Ellis, a sophomore business major, said he feels the TCU Police are there only to write reports. His car was broken into Feb. 15 and he said the TCU Police did not pursue the burglar.

“They maybe could have sympathized with me,” Ellis said. “When I talked to my insurance, the first thing they asked was if I was all right. TCU Police just wanted the report and seemed pretty apathetic to the whole situation.” Ellis said his driver-side window was broken and there was glass inside the car, but his CD player wasn’t stolen.

“I had to pay for the new window myself and since it was on TCU campus when they had officers patrolling, I wish they would take more responsibility for it,” Ellis said.

Elsie Umeh, a freshman psychology major, said her window was broken and her CD player stolen in the Colby lot Feb. 16. She said TCU Police should do more about car burglaries.

“I don’t really feel like they were trying to do anything to deter the situation from happening,” Umeh said. “It made me wonder what they were doing, so I asked if they had cameras and they said no. I asked if they were patrolling at that time and they said no.”

Umeh said she is not aware of the police’s resources but that she found it strange her car was burglarized in a very open lot.

Corporal Ervey Garcia said he understands students feel that the TCU Police are only filling the initial report and not continuing the investigation, but that they try to prevent the crime and that Ham follows up on the reports.

“We don’t get along with the burglars either,” Garcia said. “We want them caught, but they are hard to catch because they aren’t going to do it when we are there.”

During the past three months, there have been six break-ins at the Ranch Management lot; five break-ins at the Tomlinson Hall lot; three break-ins each at the freshman lot, quad lot and visitor parking lot; two break-ins each at the observatory lot and the Lubbock Street and Lowden Street lot; and one break-in each at the Worth Hills lot and the lot in front of Colby Hall.

Ham said this February has had almost the highest number of break-ins he could remember. In February 2003 there were 18 car burglaries, as opposed to 25 the previous year and just three in 2001.

“We had about nine break-ins at the Coliseum lot when Dunbar High School played,” Ham said. “The high number is due to the fact that we had a lot more people who normally don’t come to TCU and since there were so many people who attended, there were more opportunities for burglaries.”

Sarah Krebs