Around 4 a.m. on Sept. 24, a Point Loma Nazarene University student’s car was stolen from the parking lot of Wiley Hall. The details of how the car was stolen are still unknown and there have been no new updates in regards to the location of the stolen vehicle or suspected thieves.
According to an email sent to the entirety of PLNU’s undergraduate students, the Department of Public Safety (Public Safety) received a report of the stolen vehicle at noon on Sunday, Sept. 24, approximately eight hours after the crime occurred.
First-year international studies major Cormac Gardner is the owner of the 1997 beige Toyota Tacoma that was stolen from the Wiley lot.
“I went down to the station right there and they called me a couple hours later asking about any updates and sent me some texts. They’ve been really responsive about it,” said Gardner.
Although there are guards monitoring the campus entrance on Lomaland Drive 24 hours every day, Pub Safe was unaware that the car had been stolen from campus until the report was made.
“That morning they [the campus guards] were dealing with a medical emergency around 4 a.m., but we had officers out in the field and we don’t know exactly how long it took somebody to steal the car,” said Kaz Trypuc, the assistant director of Public Safety. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and sometimes it’s a matter of being in the right place and at the right time to spot this sort of thing.”
Gardner shared that this isn’t the first time something has been stolen from the parking lot of Wiley Hall. According to Gardner, one of his friends had a similar experience with theft when their car was broken into, papers were shuffled around, and “some stuff” was stolen.
“The lot that my car was stolen in, I thought it was Goodwin, but it is technically the Wiley Lot, and that one’s camera doesn’t work, so fix the camera so it can actually catch and see who got in my truck,” said Gardner.
Trypuc said that currently there are no new plans to combat these sorts of crimes.
“We aren’t taking any drastically new measures,” said Trypuc. “We haven’t had like a full motor vehicle, car, like this stolen off of campus in years, so it is very unusual. That said, I don’t have any information right now that leads me to believe that this is going to become some sort of pattern that we need to start protecting against.”
Still, Trypuc was able to clarify that if the school does see an increase in reports of these crimes, they will have to re-evaluate the situation and make alterations where they can and feel would be beneficial.
The news of a car being stolen on campus, while infrequent, has induced feelings of nervousness or fear among students regarding the safety of their own vehicles.
“It definitely makes me a little bit more cautious. It could be easy to think that since we are at Loma nobody is going to do anything, but hearing that a whole car got stolen and they [Gardner] had their keys is a little bit scary for sure,” said third-year sociology major Ava Urquhart.
Trypuc shared advice for any student who may be having similar thoughts as Urquhart.
“In general what I would encourage students to do at all times is to make sure that you leave your car locked,” said Trypuc. “Don’t store valuables in it. Those sorts of crimes are far more common.”
To learn more about Public Safety, visit https://www.pointloma.edu/offices/public-safety. Public Safety can also be contacted at their 24-hour assistance number (619) 849-2525.
