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hbucollegian.com
Houston Baptist PD captures campus burglars
Police investigate campus burglary
By Ayla Syed
December 1, 2011
The University Police Department recently filed arrest warrants as part of its investigation involving three suspects who allegedly stole thousands of dollars of electronics from a Husky Village apartment.
The three individuals, described as African American males, two in their late teens and one in his 50s, stole two plasma TVs, a personal TV, two laptops and an iPhone after entering through the unlocked door of seniors Simone Greenleaf and Shirolacille Holloway's on-campus apartment. Police were able to recover the 42-inch plasma TV and the MacBook but have not yet located the other items.
Charles Miller, University Police chief, said the investigation is still ongoing and that he hopes to make arrests soon.
"It should be pretty easy to arrest the suspects now that we have their information," he said.
Greenleaf said the crime must have occurred during a 50-minute period around 3 p.m. on Nov. 5 when she left campus to get food. She returned to find that her bedroom door had been pried open and her Macbook, personal TV and iPhone stolen.
"I just feel violated," said Greenleaf, who had schoolwork saved on her MacBook. "This is my fourth year here, and I have never had a problem. The cops do a good job of making us feel safe, but there is a whole other world outside of those gates."
Police were able to identify the men after more than a week's worth of groundwork and with the help a program called LeadsOnline, which allows them to search sales made to local pawnshops by using the serial numbers of missing items or the name of a suspect. Pawnshops must provide the state with a daily list of all merchandise received and the corresponding serial numbers of the items so law enforcement officers can compare the serial numbers against records of stolen merchandise, according to the Texas Pawnshop Act of 1997.
Officer Jason Colon tracked down the serial number for the 42-inch TV by spending hours communicating with the Walmart from which Holloway had purchased the TV.
Police used the TV's serial number to track it down to a Houston-area Cash America pawnshop, where they also recovered the Macbook.
One of the robbers had provided his driver's license number when he sold the items, and University officers used that information to file the first arrest warrant.
The officers went through the store's surveillance footage from the day the items were sold and captured still photographs of the other suspects.
One of Holloway's friends was able to identify two of the men. Holloway said she once allowed a friend to briefly bring one of the men to her apartment when she was not there and that she thinks he took notice of her belongings at that time.
"You can't just let anyone into your apartment," she said. "I will most definitely lock my doors from now on. We never used to lock our doors because we did not expect anything like this to happen."
There were 11 incidences of theft and larceny in residential area reported in the University's 2010 crime statistics. More than 30 percent of the nation's burglaries in 2010 were classified as unlawful entry, or crimes that do not involve forceful entry, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime report.
Miller said most on-campus crimes could be prevented if people locked their doors. "That's the most important thing you could do," he said. "Just lock your door."
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