By Brian Bohl

Thursday night is typically a time to kick back and head to the bars with friends, however, one University student and one non-student found their entertainment hood hopping in the Liberty and Republic resident halls parking lot.

Nassau County Police arrested student Michael Palazzolo, 19, of Nassitic** N.Y. and non-student Steven Schroder, 19, of St. James, N.Y. Palazzolo received an appearance summons from Public Safety and Schroder was banned from campus.

Damages ranged from side mirrors being ripped off to dents on the hoods and sides of the vehicles.

“An excess of ten cars had some sort of damage,” Public Safety Director, Edward Bracht said.

Junior Kieran Dotti was one of the students who received an early morning call on Friday from Public Safety, informing her that her car had been vandalized.

“They caught the guy jumping on my hood, there was footprints,” Dotti said. “I was notified at around 4:30 a.m. I drove the car to the Public Safety station and the cop took new pictures that better showed the damage.”

The total cost of repairs was excepted to be around $1500. The money had to be paid out of her pocket initially, but Dotti plans to take legal action to recoup her losses.

“I’m going to the police station tomorrow to get a copy of the police report for my insurance,” Dotti said. “I plan on filing a suit in the future.”

Junior Stephanie Maio’s car also suffered damages.

“I didn’t find out about it [the damage] until that evening,” Maio said. “The passenger side mirror was totally gone.  There was shattered glass on the ground.”

Maio will not follow Dotti’s action and press charges.

“I did not press any charges because the police officer that was helping me said it would probably cost more to do that than to replace the mirror on my car,” Maio said. “So even though I am sure these people are being punished for what they did, I still have to waste my own time and money in order to fix my car.”

The possibility of the students using alcohol was not ruled out by Public Safety, but they could not confirm any substances played a role in the rampage at this time.

“We can’t specifically say alcohol played a role at this point,” said Bracht.

Weekly Public Safety briefs shows that automobile destruction on school grounds are not rare occurrences. Four incidents of this kind were reported last week between Oct.13 through Oct. 15 alone, which is causing students to worry about the safety of their cars.

“It just got me really angry to think about these people jumping around on cars in the parking lot where I’ve always felt my car was safe,” said Maio.

Public Safety said they try to do their best to curtail similar incidents by holding students accountable for inappropriate action.

“If we are able to catch the students, they will be given summons,” Bracht said.

Students found their car mirrors and hoods smashed, after two men were arrested for vandalizing over 10 cars. (Jeanine Poggi/The Chronicle)

(Jeanine Poggi/The Chronicle)