A total of six cars, the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) sign, the west side of Addams Hall, and a few other spots were vandalized with spray paint between 4:50 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday, Dec. 1 by two perpetrators. The shock came for many students, who parked in the north parking lot of Sparks Hall, as they attempted to head home for the weekend.
Some of the worst of the graffiti was aimed towards vehicles parked in the back area of the main parking lot for Sparks Hall, located the furthest from cameras. The two perpetrators hit six reported cars in total, seemingly at random, and sprayed windows, windshields, wheels, and the sides of vehicles. All were parked on that side of the building; no vehicles parked elsewhere on campus were reported as vandalized.
As soon as security was notified, they began reviewing the camera footage from the night before, but unfortunately, they cannot clearly make out the vandals, due to the pair hiding their faces with hats and hoods. Despite getting close to some cameras, there isn’t enough evidence to directly identify the culprits.
Due to the juvenile nature of the graffiti, and stature of the pair, security said they believe that they are most likely high school students that may live in the area. They have sent all viable footage to the Chickasha Police Department, where there is an officer investigating the offense.
Once students noticed, the police were called and reports were made. The officer at the scene stated that there wasn’t much they could do if the security footage did not capture the identy of those responsible. However, Russell Pool, head of campus security, is optimistic that the vandals will be caught, even if it takes some time.
“The police more than likely have already had at least one encounter with these kids. It’s very likely (the police) already know, or has an idea, of who they are,” Pool said.
The main concern students who were affected have is what measures USAO will take to improve the protection of student property. Whitley Reid, a freshman art major, was one of the students whose car was defaced.
“I definitely don’t feel very safe parking back there anymore, mostly because of the lack of cameras,” Reid said.
She added that it also seems not as well-lit as it could be, and that improving these issues would make the parking lot feel more secure. Noah Hinson, a freshman history major who was also affected, agreed.
“I started to park closer to the building just to feel safer because there are more security cameras over there. But yeah, I’m definitely not parking back there again,” Noah Hinson, a freshman history major whose car was vandalized, said. “A few more security cameras, that would be nice; that’s pretty much it, it was a helpless situation, it just kinda happened.”
This helpless feeling was echoed by other students, who are disappointed that the only thing to do is to repair the damage and hope it doesn’t happen again.
“The most common crime we have on campus is people just checking doors, seeing if it’s unlocked, and if it is open, they’ll get in and take what they can get,” Pool said.
The vandals had checked the doors of many of the cars, and the damage could have been a lot worse had any been unlocked. Good practice, as a student, is to lock your car and dorm, report suspicious activity to security, and make a police report when victim to a crime like this.
If you want to help improve the security of our campus, bring your concerns to your SGA representative and SGA Town Hall meetings, where they can take those concerns to the appropriate faculty and staff.
Thomas Buchanan is a second-year art major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
