By: Brianna Wallen
Editor-in-Chief
On the morning of Oct. 12, biology major Amelia Cayman, a junior, thought she had simply forgotten where she parked. Instead, she walked out of her residence hall Monday morning to find her car missing, becoming one of two students at the university whose vehicles were stolen that weekend.
Cayman said she parked her 2020 Hyundai Elantra in the lot behind North Campus around 8 p.m. on Oct. 11. By the time she returned the following morning, around 8 a.m., the car was gone.
“I walked out there, and I was like, ‘huh, maybe I didn’t park here for once,’” Cayman said.
That uncertainty quickly turned into alarm when she noticed her personals belongings scattered across the parking lot.
Cayman said she immediately contacted campus police, who told her surveillance footage showed someone breaking into her vehicle and driving away at approximately 6:30 a.m.
The footage showed a person removing the door handle and the surrounding area near the lock to gain entry.
“I was like, ‘So you caught it on camera, but you couldn’t stop them,’” Cayman said.
Police were unable to identify the person, and Cayman said she was not allowed to view the footage.
University Police filed a report, provided her with a case identification number and entered the vehicle into a national database of stolen cars. Cayman said she was advised to contact her insurance company while police continued looking for the vehicle.
However, she said the interaction left her wanting more information about what would be done to prevent future thefts.
“I was just kind of like, so you guys know this isn’t a surprise for you, and you’re not going to be patrolling the parking lots more or anything?” Cayman said.
Cayman later learned that another student’s car, a Kia, had been stolen that same weekend. She questioned why additional patrols or other preventative measures had not been communicated to students.
“They know that this is New Haven, and they know the area isn’t the best, and they’re not gonna take procedures to make sure we’re okay?” Cayman said.
The theft was particularly upsetting because this was Cayman’s first year living on campus.
“I paid for it. I worked really hard in high school to get it,” Cayman said. “I’ve had it maybe two years, and it’s already been stolen from me at my school that I live at, that I’m supposed to be safe at.”
Cayman also criticized a university email providing vehicle safety reminders, saying it made her feel as though the responsibility for preventing theft fell on students rather than addressing broader security concerns.
The email from University Police Chief Kenneth Rahn, sent out to the campus community on Thursday, Oct. 15, encouraged students to take preventive measures to protect themselves from theft.
“Kia and Hyundai have discontinued their prior program of giving out steering wheel locks for the targeted model years,” Rahn said in the email. “However, both offer a free software upgrade to restrict unauthorized operation of vehicle ignition systems.”
However, Cayman said the university’s message left her feeling that the responsibility for preventing theft was being placed on students rather than on the university to address broader campus security concerns.
“It pretty much feels like they’re just blaming me for getting my car stolen,” Cayman said. “It’s giving off like oh you should have done like this and that for your car and that’s it.”
Chief Rahn said the thefts are part of a broader trend involving certain Kia and Hyundai models, which have been targeted because of vulnerabilities in their ignition systems.
“Unfortunately, there has been a trend throughout the state, throughout the country, with certain vehicles,” Rahn said. “There were certain year models that, because of the design of the ignition, they were very easy to override the ignition and steal them.”
Rahn said University Police have tried to prevent these thefts by sharing safety information and distributing free steering wheel locks to students and staff last semester.
Lt. Richard Anderson added that there are recent trends in the community with car theft.
“There has been an uptick in the area, not just you know those two cars for us, but the area in New Haven County, so I can be honest. They hit us, and that’s what happened,” Anderson said.
Cayman said she wanted to hear more about what the university planned to do in response to the thefts.
“It’s them knowing that there’s an increase in carjackings and like people breaking into cars, and they’re not doing anything about it, like adding more patrolling or more cops just going around, which is really sad,” Cayman said.
Cayman said she hopes the university will take greater responsibility for addressing vehicle thefts and provide students with more reassurance that their safety and property are protected.
“It’s frustrating that we’re supposed to live on campus and feel safe having our cars here,” Cayman said. “They’re assuring us that we’re safe, but we’re not.”
