Sutton Crime Reactions

On Thursday, Feb. 24, four unique security incidents occurred in Sutton Place Apartments.

At 6:23 a.m., a female resident of Sutton reported a male entering her apartment and room without permis­sion, and committing a sexual act to himself.

At 7:30 a.m., a female resident of Sutton reported someone entering her apartment without permission, and stealing her laptop.

At 11 a.m., two male residents of Sutton re­ported someone entering their apartment without permission and stole both of their laptop computers.

At 3 p.m., another fe­male resident of Sutton reported some­one entering her apartment without permission as slept.

Campus Security and the Winter Park Police Department are investigat­ing all of the incidents. At this point, no evidence suggests that the cases are linked in any way.

Residential Life is doing everything it can to provide a safe environment for students. Assistant Director of Resi­dential Life Abby Prokop believes that “while we embrace the close-knit envi­ronment of the residence halls, safety always needs to be considered.”

Alexis Neu, a RA in Sutton, feels strongly about what happened. “I think that the break-ins serve as a re­ality check for the Rollins community. As Director of Residential Life Leon Hayner said tonight at an information session, the level of comfort students feel on campus and in the residence halls is a double edge sword: on the one hand, it is good that students feel safe and secure, but this high sense of secu­rity can cause us to let our guard down occasionally. Unfortunately, it is when we let our guard down that incidences like these are most likely to occur.”

As a result of the break-ins, Matt Smith ’11 and member of the Sutton Hall Council e-mailed a survey to the residents of Sutton to explore opinions about installing cameras to the entranc­es of the residence hall. Wes Greeley ’11 shared his thoughts on the camera issue. “I do think that they will be useful in identifying perpetrators. How­ever, I’m not sure how useful camera record­ings can be in actu­ally effectively proving that this certain person caught on tape at this certain time was responsible for this certain crime.”

David Celis ’11 favors the idea of using cameras in Sutton. “People let anybody into the building without ask­ing who they are. Because of this, it seems like the only way to keep track of the people entering and exiting the building is using cameras. I’m all for it.”

Regardless of cameras or not, resi­dents must begin to protect themselves by locking their doors.

Campus Security highly recom­mends that all students lock their doors and carry their key or R-Card with them at all times.

If you have any information that may help Campus Security and Winter Park Police, please contact Campus Se­curity at 407/646-2999 or security@list­serv.rollins.edu, or Winter Park Police at 407-644-1313.