Break-ins are rampant in recent weeks
Last Thursday, eight vehicles were broken into in a downtown parking lot next to the post office on East Hancock Street. According to the Milledgeville Police Department, the car windows were burst out between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
“We are currently working on it,” MPD Captain Dray Swicord said. “It was a bar night, so that probably has a lot to do with it.”
GCSU’s Public Safety Department has also seen a sudden rise in automobile break-ins around the campus.
Officer Greg Williams said that there were at least three different cases of forced automobile entry in parking lots around the campus between Thursday and Tuesday.
“A few car windows were smashed in the Thursday night – Friday morning hours out by PawPrints,” Williams said. “In that instance a purse was stolen, another purse was stolen on (Sunday) in a vehicle entry in the commuter lot by Peabody. The third entering auto took (Tuesday) by the Centennial Center. In that incident a GPS unit was stolen.”
Williams is surprised by the number of break-ins. Normally, he said, there are very few vehicle intrusions.
“We really don’t know why this is happening all of a sudden,” Willaims said.
Jake Chambliss, a junior business major, had his car parked in the lot next to the post office on Thrusday night.
“I was told by the police Friday morning that my window had been busted in,” Chambliss said. “The good thing was that it didn’t look like anything had been taken, but I was not happy.”
Chambliss said that he had been parking in that lot about 6 days a week and had never thought that anyone would break into his car.
“I won’t be parking over there anymore,” he said.
Students do not need to be overly concerned, according to Williams.
“The main thing is that students need to lock their doors,” he said. “A number of the break-ins have occurred with unlocked doors. Students also need to remember not to leave anything valuable in plain sight. And don’t keep your GPS units on the windshield, put them in your glove compartment or center console.”
Currently, neither MPD or Public Safety have any leads on the cases.
Any information should be reported to the Milledgeville Police Department at 478-414-4000 or GCSU Public Safety at 478-445-4400.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 24 2008. Filed under News.
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