As the summer comes to an end, and we begin to ramp up for the new school year, the Oregon State Police at the Oregon State University would like to remind everyone of a few things that may help prevent theft on the Oregon State University Campus.
During this time of year, we have staff moving into their offices and new students moving into their dorm halls and residences. With all of these moves comes an abundance of new gadgets, laptops, smartphones and other new and exciting things. This also creates an opportunity rich environment for thieves to take advantage of the fact that everyone is new, and we may not all recognize the people walking around our buildings or dorm halls.
Here are a few helpful pointers that the Oregon State Police would like to provide to the campus community for keeping your property safe:
- Lock your office doors whenever you away from them, even if it will only be for a few minutes. Recently, we have taken multiple theft reports where the victim was only away from their office for a matter of moments.
- Lock your dorm room doors. We know that we all want everyone to be able to trust one another, and believe that your friends down the hall would not come into your room to steal our things. Unfortunately this is not the reality, and we take reports every year of thefts from an unlocked dorm room.
- Lock your vehicle doors, and do not leave anything of value visible through your car windows. Also, don’t leave your car parked in the same space for days and weeks without moving it around.
- Lock up your bicycles, preferably with a U-lock, which is more difficult for a thief to defeat. Don’t just lock the front or rear wheels, lock the frame of the bicycle to a secure object.
- Do not leave backpacks, laptops, smartphones, iPod/iPads or anything else of value unattended. PERIOD. Not in the library, the classroom, hallway, or anywhere that you will not be able to physically see your property. All too often, we take theft reports where the victim walked away from their property to use the restroom only to return and find their belongings gone.
- Report any suspicious persons or behavior. We would rather have a report about a person that ended up not having committed a crime, than to miss the opportunity to catch a criminal stealing your property.
- You can register your serialized property, i.e. laptops and such including bicycles with the Department of Public Safety located at 200 Cascade Hall. Registration of your property will greatly improve our ability to find it.
Finally, we would like to welcome everyone back to the Oregon State University to have a safe and successful year. If you have any questions or would like to contact the Department of Public Safety or the Oregon State Police, do not hesitate to call (541)737-3010.
Trooper John Wolfenbarger
Oregon State Police
University Patrol Office
200 Cascade Hall Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone: (541)737-3010
Fax: (541)737-0468
