By Staff
Two students returned to their vehicles, which they believed were safe while parked within the University’s gated community, on the week of March 10 to find their windows were smashed and their car stereos missing. By the end of the week, three other students found themselves in the same situation, and by deadline almost a dozen car radios had been ripped out of students’ cars, according to one student who found himself among the victims of Hofstra’s radio bandit.
Public Safety was unable to confirm this information by press time, but reports of stolen car radios have graced the Public Safety Briefs for the second week in a row, signaling that there may be a breach in the security on campus.
The source said that one Public Safety officer revealed to him that the majority of the incidents have occurred in the parking lot near Monroe and C.V. Starr. It seems that a pretty simple solution to this problem would be to plant one patrolman in this space, since the suspect seems to favor this spot.
As an institution that is comprised predominantly of commuters, whether they be students, faculty, administrators or employees, and car-owning residents, thousands of vehicles are scattered across the campus every day; any thief looking for spare auto parts could probably find replacements for practically every car on the road today within the University’s parking lots.
Students, and the rest of the campus community, should be able to rest assure that when their cars are parked legally on campus, they will not be tampered with, barring any accidents and fender benders. It is unacceptable that a person was able to wander onto the campus, break into a parked vehicle and pry an expensive piece of equipment from the dashboard without anyone witnessing the act, not once, but multiple times.
The concerns of commuter students at the University are too often dismissed. Each year they lose more and more parking spaces as new buildings are erected and their calls for a parking garage fall on deaf ears. Each week, acts of vandalism to student vehicles are reported, yet they are also dismissed as part of the everyday occurrences at a large institution. Commuters need to be more vocal about the issues that are not earth-shattering, but do affect their daily experiences at Hofstra. (While th annual Campus Safety Report includes the amount of cars that were stolen each year, it fails to indicate how many reports of vandalism and theft of car parts were reported.)
Most students rely on their vehicles to transport them to class, to work and to an internship, so when their car is damaged, it not only costs them money to repair it, but it can also interfere with their lives. Some insurance companies even charge their drivers more if they know that they are parking on a college campus. Therefore, these students are already paying a price for parking at the University, and a break-in or theft can only put a greater dent in their wallets.
Public Safety should take a more proactive approach to protecting students’ cars from theft and vandalism. If this means hiring more officers, then so be it. Or maybe, investing in security cameras to be installed throughout the parking lots may be the route to take to atleast catch the offenders in the act to hold them accountable and to prevent future thefts.
Hofstra is not situated among the safest areas on Long Island, and yet Public Safety has done a stellar job of keeping students safe, judging from the low incidence of violent crimes on campus. However, it is not too much to ask that they extend this same level of vigilance to the sedans and the SUVs that students depend on to escort them to class every day.

by Andres Soto