SMU students worry about being able to find a parking spot on campus. Now students have to worry about whether or not their car is going to be the way they left it when they get back.
First-year men, relegated to parking in Dedman lot 3 instead of the Moody Garage as in years past, are more and more often coming back to cars that have been bromen in to.
Recent police reports show an increase in criminal activity including smash-and-grab burglaries involving first-year men’s cars. Typically the thieves will look into cars and see if there are visible valuables, smash the window and grab all that is in reach. They have taken everything from computers, CDs and stereos to textbooks.
First year Estin Guerrero recently had his stereo, radar detector and CDs stolen from his car. The thieves also tried to steal the engine out of his red Honda Civic. He said he “never thought it was gonna really ever happen until it happened to him.”
These smash-and-grab burglaries take only seconds. Skillful burglars can have a car completely stripped in ten minutes or less according to the SMU police.
“A car fully stripped is worth more than a whole car,” said Capt. Mike Snellgrove. The individual parts can be sold for a greater value than if they were sold on the car.
Michael Mitchell, who recently had his stereo stolen out of his car, has installed an alarm to ensure the safety of his 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe and the post-installation parts he has added.
“I never felt that my car was safe out there to begin with,” Mitchell said. “I saw a car left on cinder blocks in the parking lot once in the beginning of the year.”
The SMU police believe that the car found in Dedman lot 3 on cinder blocks was marked by thieves off campus and that they followed the driver on campus to snatch the flashy rims.
To secure cars on campus, the SMU police say they are doing as much as they can. They use surveillance cameras and patrol lots on an hourly basis. Having a 24-hour, seven-day- a-week guard in Dedman lot3 is cost-prohibitive. The university would have to give more money to the police department so they could hire five new officers to fill one job.
A comparison of last year’s and this year’s police reports show this sort of criminal activity has doubled since the first-year men have been moved. The move, according to the SMU police, was necessary because first-year men returning to campus deposited trash all over the garage and urinated in elevators and stairwells. The police also say the garage gave thieves and pranksters more cover since there was less chance of being seen from afar.
The city of Dallas is even aware of the increase in smash-and-grab burglaries. It reported over the summer that in Dallas alone at least 70 cars are broken into a day.
