<p>11-15-11
Over the last 7 to 10 days, four students have reported to housing officials and UAPD that an unidentified male has entered their room through an unlocked door. In each case, the male subject left the room upon being discovered.
In the wake of these incidents, we would like to remind you that the very best way to insure your personal safety and the safety of your belongings is to lock your residence hall door at all times, whether you are in your room or not.
Do not let a missing key be the reason to leave your door unlocked. If you or a roommate has lost a room key, please submit a work order for a new key through this link on the Housing and Residential Communities Web site, <a href=“http://housing.ua.edu/on_campus/work_order_request.cfm”>http://housing.ua.edu/on_campus/work_order_request.cfm</a>. You may also contact your community desk for assistance.</p>
<p>If you see or experience anything unusual in your residence hall at any time, please contact UAPD immediately at 205-348-5454.</p>
<p>To keep you and your home safe, remember to lock your door at all times.</p>
<p>Housing and Residential Communities</p>
<p>Tell your kids to keep those suite doors locked, and to lock their bedrooms at night. My D’s suite in Riverside North is one of the four mentioned. Turns out a roommate had lost her key and was leaving the door unlocked when she went out. It’s easy to feel safe in a secure building, but in truth its not that hard for someone to get in if they are motivated. Happily, no one has been harmed but parents need to drive the point home about locking doors.</p>
<p>D has her crimson emails forwarded to the home address so I saw this warning and mentioned it to her last night. She assured me that she is vigilant about locking the suite door. She then said it was ironic because just a day ago one of her suite mates was complaining about their door always being locked!</p>
<p>There have been rumors about this for at least a week now, so it is nice that it was officially confirmed finally. There have been rumors of other bad things occurring in the dorms, so it can be very difficult to tell truth from rumor. Way too much strange stuff happening this campus in such a short time period…</p>
<p>In D’s suite, she awoke to find her bedroom door open. She was half asleep and got up and closed it. Her roommate woke up to find the guy in her bedroom. He ran when she yelled at him.
He had unplugged all the nightlights in the suite. </p>
<p>Needless to say - very frightening to the girls and the Mom’s. Tell the kids to lock their doors.</p>
<p>I almost wonder if there should be some sort of confidential whistle blower program in place for students to report some of the most concerning issues. While the RA system is probably very effective, the fear of backlash from reporting some of the more disturbing issues likely keeps fellow students from reporting them. OF COURSE this is not exclusive to UA but to students in dorms everywhere, but I have to say some of what I hear from the suites is surprising, would be naive to think the “Honors” makes a difference when it comes to students who have no regard for the appropriateness or legality of things.</p>
<p>As far as the above^ wow - I’m glad the students are ok, they need to get a handle on this immediately!</p>
<p>is it happening in just one dorm? or multiple dorms…if just one, must be a student there as i assume they have someone monitor who is entering the buildings at night</p>
<p>Use this as a reminder to keep your doors locked during the night or when you aren’t there. There is a big difference between having your front door unlocked when you are in the kitchen and know that people will be entering in the near future and the front door unlocked when everyone is sleeping.</p>
<p>That said, I do not support the installation of security cameras inside the dorms except in cases such as those in Ridgecrest South where there was a trend of having false fire alarms. The intruder should be on the video for the security cameras at each entrance and could likely be identified that way. I view the installation of interior security cameras much the same as having a police officer constantly roaming the halls, which while sometimes done at UA, is illegal in some states (not AL) without probable cause.</p>
<p>I agree that a description/sketch, if available, of the intruder should be released.</p>
<p>In addition to the dorm issues that have been discussed in this thread, I want to point out 2 other issues that my daughter brought to my attention last evening. </p>
<p>This one relates to students who live off campus (mainly in rental homes). My daughter told me that a woman rang her doorbell in the Forest Lake area. My daughters two roomies were at home and this woman was asking lots of questions that after I heard what the questions were, I had the feeling that she was casing the place for the potential of breaking in at a later date (holidays are fast approaching). Thankfully my daughters roomies were savvy enough not to let her in or answer her questions. This occurred yesterday and they heard from a friend of their’s that the same thing happened to this friend. </p>
<p>The other situation is that evidentally, when students go shopping (and this has occurred in the Walmart parking lot), again a woman jumps in the passenger seat of the vehicle and starts asking for money. When the student states that they don’t have money on them to give her, she then wants them to drive to an ATM or to McDonald’s for food. Since I am not in the Tuscaloosa area, I am not sure if this has occurred several times, but my daughter said the word is to be careful in parking lots. Just to let you know, in Chapel Hill, NC about 4 years ago a similar situation occurred and it did not end well for the student body president of the university!</p>
<p>With the economy not doing so well, and with people becoming more desparate, our students have to be more vigilent as to what is going on in their surroundings.</p>
<p>In my haste to post upon writing this at 2:30 am this morning, I failed to read and correct. This is the corrected version. Sorry about my sleep deprived post. </p>
<p>In addition to the dorm issues that have been discussed in this thread, I want to point out 2 other issues that my daughter brought to my attention last evening. </p>
<p>This one relates to students who live off campus (mainly in rental homes). My daughter told me that a woman rang her doorbell in the Forest Lake area. My daughter’s two roomies were at home and this woman was asking lots of questions which caused me to believe she was casing the place for the potential of breaking in at a later date (holidays are fast approaching). Thankfully my daughter’s roomies were savvy enough not to let her in or answer her questions. This occurred yesterday and they heard from a friend of theirs that the same thing happened to this friend. </p>
<p>The other situation is that evidently, when students go shopping (and this has occurred in the Wal-Mart parking lot), again a woman jumps in the passenger seat of the vehicle and starts asking for money. When the student states that they don’t have money on them to give her, she then wants them to drive to an ATM or to McDonalds for food. Since I am not in the Tuscaloosa area, I am not sure if this has occurred several times, but my daughter said the word is to be careful in parking lots. Just to let you know, in Chapel Hill, NC about 4 years ago a similar situation occurred and it did not end well for the student body president of the university!</p>
<p>With the economy not doing so well, and with people becoming more desperate, our students have to be more vigilant as to what is going on in their surroundings.</p>