Campus security is not all that secure

Ryan Plourde / The USD Vista

The USD Department of Public Safety is, as their slogan reads, “committed to safety through education.” The point of this article is not to dispute the commitment of the DPS, but take a second to think about another issue: how many parking tickets are issued on a daily basis? Surely any student with a fringe parking pass knows that parking above ground for more than 20 minutes will result in a ticket. Public Safety obviously takes parking on campus seriously. My question is, how does a 2004 Yukon Denali simply drive off campus while the owner of the car is studying in the library?

Sadly, this question is not rhetorical and is not a fictional scenario. On Oct. 20, senior Angel Carreno’s car, the Yukon Denali mentioned above, was stolen from the West Parking Lot around midnight while Carreno was studying on campus. After a call to parking services confirmed that the car had not been towed, Carreno went to Public Safety to report the theft. “They had me file a formal report and told me that they would get back to me if they found anything out,” Carreno said.

“Due to a lack of resources there is not much we can due in a case like this. We take our own report to put on file and then refer the case to SDPD for further investigation,” Public Safety Lt. Quinton Kawahara said.

Because of this, Public Safety never got back to Carreno, so he was understandably surprised when he learned about his car in The Vista’s Public Safety Report. A segment appeared a week later stating that a car had been stolen from the West Lot on Oct. 20 at approximately 12 a.m. but the figure in the car could not be identified by the cameras at the West Entrance since the windows were tinted.

It has been nearly a month since the Denali was stolen and Carreno hasn’t heard anything about the incident, not even from SDPD who told Carreno his stolen car was not a priority. “Something like this shouldn’t happen at USD. It’s a private school; it shouldn’t be possible that just anybody can get on campus. Students should be able to park here and know that their car will be there when they get back,” Carreno said.

How can just anybody get on campus and steal a car when it is supposedly secure? There is a security kiosk at the entrances; every morning a nice man in a blue shirt assures students it’s safe to continue into the parking lot. However, the safety kiosk is vacant at certain hours of the night. “The west kiosk is not staffed 24/7 for budget purposes. We rely on security cameras and routine patrol to ensure campus safety during those hours,” Lt. Kawahara said.

The security camera referenced is not capable of identifying people inside a car with tinted windows, so it’s obviously not capable of keeping the campus secure. There is a kiosk at the campus entrance for a reason and someone should be at that kiosk at all times to ensure that unwelcome visitors do not enter campus.

Hopefully the Department of Public Safety learns from and addresses the problem in the future.