On the night of Jan. 5, Damascus, Syria senior Jana Rajab’s car was broken into where it was parked in the lot between Whitehouse and Twin. According to Rajab, it was clear that whoever had broken in was trying to steal the car.
“Obviously they were unsuccessful because it was still there,” Rajab said. “But, they left everything that was damaged.”
Rajab said she gave two in-person statements to a Campus Safety officer after the car was found the next day, the second with her boyfriend, but never heard anything back. After reaching out to Director of Campus Safety Dave Leib, Rajab said she was told that with no camera footage of the area, there was nothing they could do.
Though the car and its damages were insured, she said being paid for the loss was a “tedious process without the help of security footage.”
In her conversations with Albion Public Safety, Rajab said she was told they had a suspect, but there wasn’t anything they could do without evidence.
“Whoever committed this crime gets to walk away,” Rajab said.
Other Incidents Near the Lot
This hasn’t been the only incident in the area. After her car was totaled, Rajab said she started driving her boyfriend’s car, which was egged only a few weeks later where it was parked on East Porter St.
The Pleiad reached out to her boyfriend, Zeeland senior Anders Forster, via email on Feb. 12. He did not respond in time for publication.
“I don’t know if this is personal at this point,” Rajab said. “Even then, in this economy, are you really wasting an egg?”
In another incident, during the fall 2024 semester, Dallas sophomore Ruth Dessie said Campus Safety found her car in the parking lot, all of its doors open. Dessie said the officer took a few photos before closing the car and emailing her to notify her.
“There was nothing to be stolen there anyway,” Dessie said. “It was just a whole pain.”
Since then, Dessie said she parks near Campus Safety in front of Seaton Hall, where she lives.
For Rajab, who has paid “probably $1200” in parking fees over the two years she’s had her car on campus, “they should definitely be having cameras up in the parking lots.”
“I find it so ridiculous to have to pay all this money,” Rajab said. “$300 a year for a parking pass when there’s no safety or security.”
Plans to Add Cameras in the Area
Adding additional outdoor security cameras would be considered phase three of plans to increase coverage across campus, Director of Campus Safety Dave Leib said. This comes after phase two, Leib added, in which 32 cameras were installed throughout the interiors of Seaton and Whitehouse, funded by a grant given to Campus Safety and the IT department.
According to Leib, there were plans to renovate the parking lot in the summer of 2024, including adding outdoor security cameras, but the updates were postponed.
“Phase three was supposed to cover more parking lots,” Leib said. “Certain aspects of that phase will be kind of tentative, because the parking lots, in general, don’t have the infrastructure for cameras.”
President Wayne Webster said this was because the project lost funds from some of the college’s bondholders which were planned to fund the project.
“The plans are still there, it’s still something I think we need to do,” Webster said. “It’s just how we fund it will probably be a little bit different pathway than we anticipated and take a little bit longer than we hoped.”
As for the money students pay for their parking passes, Webster said it “goes towards the overall operations.”
Keeping Your Car Safe
To protect their vehicles, Leib said the students should make sure windows are up, doors are locked, they are up-to-date with any security recalls on their car and “keep anything valuable out of sight,” including loose change, laptops, tablets or cell phones.
“People don’t typically break into something if they don’t already see something that’s worth breaking into for,” Leib added.
If something does happen, Leib said to call Campus Safety first, and an officer will be sent to take a report and begin an investigation.
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