Students living on and off campus should consider taking extra precaution before leaving their homes for both Thanksgiving and Winter Breaks, Bob Fey, UPD assistant chief of police, said.
"Burglaries more frequently occur when no one is at home," he said. "And if an offender knows there will be an extended period of time, such as Christmas break, when no one is at home in the student apartment, I would say that at that time period, those particular buildings are more susceptible to burglaries," he said.
Fey said he couldn't say the exact number of how many burglaries their were over the weekend because those police reports aren't due until Monday morning, but he can see burglaries over breaks happening despite there not being any during Thanksgiving Break 2010.
"Over the weekend, we had several [burglaries], and it would not be surprising to see the same number over the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks because particularly for local offenders, they know when the students are gone," he said.
During Winter Break 2010, nine burglaries happened at student housing off campus and one happened on campus in the Teacher's College.
David Huff, UPD detective, said some important precautions will be to lock doors and to not leave notes on the door saying when the residents will be gone.
"If it is just going to be [one student by themselves], we ask that they keep an eye out for us and not to hesitate to call if they see something that is out of the ordinary," he said. "Something as ridiculous as seeing someone walk out with a TV just to have us called. It may not be anything, but it also may be something so definitely want to remind our students not to hesitate to call us."
Students should also not leave keys under things outside of their door such as mats or rocks.
Huff said UPD will be passing fliers out with burglary precautions between now and Winter Break. They will be going door-to-door in their target area of New York Avenue to Wheeling Avenue and South Bethel Avenue to past the Village.
"When I say target area, those are the areas we had more burglaries in those areas last year, and they have shown a history of having burglaries in those areas in the past and that's why we want to target those areas and make sure that the people are educated on even knowing that they can contact us for extra watch," he said.
Students who will be out of town can also email UPD to ask for an extra watch. They need to email police@bsu.edu with a name and emergency phone number where they can be reached and the dates that they will be gone.
Huff said they encourage all students to email their information so that UPD can concentrate its target area for where students live.
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