This is not just another
editorial meant to rip on
Parking Services and UR Security, but it’s hard not to point fingers when you feel victimized.
Last Thursday, in broad daylight, someone pried up the plating around my car door handles to break into my car and steal my CD player.
I had parked around 8:45 a.m. in the middle of Park Lot and when I returned around 3:45 p.m., I found the middle section of my front dash torn out and my stereo gone. Big deal, right? A CD player can be easily replaced. The problem was the helpless feeling that followed.
Though I live in the 19th Ward, an community often misconstrued as dangerous, I never felt unsafe on or off campus before, but that all changed when the coin was flipped.
Security has gone to great lengths to improve campus security recently and Director of UR Security Walter Mauldin informs me that more positive changes are on the way.
Currently, there are numerous security cameras at different locations on campus, but, according to Mauldin, Hill Court is the only parking lot included on that list. It seems like priorities should be reconsidered if cameras for public Web viewing are installed in Wilson Commons and on the Eastman Quad before they are put in places like student parking lots.
I’d personally rather have the money spent on the peace of mind that security cameras help provide than on giving someone’s parents a chance to watch shots of students walking across the ever-exciting Eastman Quad.
Mauldin assures me that plans are in the works for installing cameras at the Medical Center and in Park Lot. In my opinion, this action is long overdue.
On further investigation, I discovered that security only officially patrols each parking lot every two or three hours. Apparently, Parking Services passes through much more often, but their emphasis is obviously not on protecting cars from vandalism.
More frequent drive throughs would go a long way to deter potential criminals and a more visible security presence would be, at least in my mind, more reassuring.
It would be unreasonable to believe that security and Parking Services could prevent all thefts, but it seems strange that a car can be broken into in broad daylight without anyone seeing a thing.
Maybe all my frustrations stem from something much larger. Call me nave, but it still shocks me that there are people out there who have no regard for other people’s property. No amount of security can really protect against that problem.
The bottom line is that parking on campus, or anywhere for that matter, shouldn’t be risk. I shouldn’t have to think about whether it, or anything inside it, will still be there when I get back.
The worst part of it all is that someone walked off with my Frank Sinatra CD and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Taylor can be reached at ktaylor@campustimes.org.
