Some students were surprised to log into their e-mail accounts this week and find no alert from the Department of Public Safety about four burglaries that struck South Campus during Thanksgiving break.

Under the Clery Act, DPS must issue timely warnings to students about a reported crime if it remains an ongoing threat. All four burglaries, during which students were off campus for Thanksgiving break, were reported to police on Sunday after students returned.

Three burglaries occurred at 151 Winding Ridge Road, 121 Small Road and 520 Slocum Drive between Nov. 23 and Sunday, and a fourth burglary occurred at 220 Winding Ridge Road between Nov. 21 and Sunday, according to DPS crime records.

It is a challenge for campus safety departments to issue alerts after a crime has already occurred during a break and students have returned, said Daniel Carter, the director of public policy at the nonprofit Security On Campus, Inc.

‘The threat has very likely passed, and it’s certainly not timely,’ he said.

The key in the lack of e-mail alerts for the most recent burglaries is that a significant amount of time may have passed between when the burglaries occurred and when they were reported to police, Carter said. Campus safety departments also do not want to over-issue alerts, he said.

‘If they have reason to believe the threat has passed by the time they are notified of it, that is a legitimate grounds for not issuing a timely warning,’ he said.

DPS Chief Tony Callisto and Asst. Chief Mike Rathbun did not return phone calls from The Daily Orange.

Without an e-mail alert, some students discovered on their own that the burglaries had occurred.

Heather Jenkins, a sophomore who lives on Winding Ridge, found out about the burglaries through an article published in The Daily Orange on Monday. She thought DPS would send an e-mail alert to students on South, she said.

‘I live there, so I like to know about that kind of stuff,’ said Jenkins, an English and textual studies and education major. ‘I like to feel safe where I live.’

An e-mail alert would have helped students protect their apartments because many may leave their doors unlocked, said Shalisa Gunter, a sophomore psychology major who lives on Winding Ridge. Gunter, who did not find out about the burglaries until Tuesday, said she was surprised DPS did not send an e-mail alert.

The first thing sophomore Taylor Mason thought when a friend told him about the burglaries was that DPS did not send an e-mail alert, he said.

‘Why am I hearing about this through word of mouth?’ said Mason, a sophomore film major who lives on Lambreth Lane.

Even if students were on a break, the least DPS could have done was send students an e-mail alert, he said.

‘As taken for granted as they are,’ he said, ‘they actually are really valuable.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on November 30, 2010 at 12:00 pm