Six students return to locked classroom to find property stolen

By Joshua Rosario | Published by April 18, 2019

Six students returned to their classroom in Bruce Hall on March 26 to find their laptops and wallets missing. They had been out on a lab assignment with their professor and had left their personal belongings in the classroom, which had been locked behind them.

The ecology class left the lockedroom B110 as they went to make observations and collect samples at the Kennedy Reservation located near Harwood Arena. The class had returned to the locked classroom to find some of the students were missing items. Iris Garcia, Patrick Malinowski, Aliyah Hargrove, Navdeep Singh, Weetsnie Eloy, and Micilene Moise had laptops and wallets as well were stolen from their stuff left behind.

“I’m out of a brand new laptop,” said Hargrove, a senior biology major. “ I don’t have the money to buy another and I will not buy a new one!”

Ecology Professor Lucas Kirby had locked all the doors in B110 as some of the rooms in Bruce Hall are conjoined. There was no class next door when they left the classroom around 12:30 pm. There is a room conjoined at each side of the classroom. One of the doors into room B110 has a code lock.

“We all saw him take the key and locked the door; he pulled the door handle  to make sure it was locked and then proceeded to check the doors of the adjacent connecting room doors which where also all locked,” said Hargrove. “So someone had access to a key to get into the locked room and it was still locked when we returned.”

Singh noticed when they came back around 2:15 pm from the lab that his bag was not in the same chair when he left and saw his laptop was missing.

“It absolutely blows my mind how this could have happened,” said Singh. “ This isn’t the first time anything has been stolen from that building. There have been many stories and it blows my mind as to why they still don’t have any cameras, especially in that building.”

Kirby stated everything looked normal when they came back. Some of the chargers were moved to one bag but the room wasn’t “ransacked.”As of right now, the students will be receiving temporary laptops to use for classes.

“You think a locked classroom is a locked classroom,” said Kirby. “You want to take them outside, but you don’t want them taking their laptops into the forest.”

The students are hoping to be reimbursed for their losses as the theft of their property was from a locked classroom.

“If the school doesn’t hold themselves accountable and give me the same amount of money that I lost in this theft,” said Garcia, a junior biology major.

University Police are continuing to investigate the thefts that were reported at Bruce Hall on March 26, according to University Spokesperson Margaret McCorry.

“In the meantime, the University has been proactive in offering loaner laptops to students whose computers were stolen and is working to thoroughly reimburse students for their losses,” said McCorry. “ The University takes these issues very seriously and continually looks for ways to further enhance our secure campus environment.”

Update: Students have been reimbursed for all items stolen and police are still currently investigating the theft.  

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