This past weekend and into the week, a string of vandalism occurred on DePauw's campus.
There have been two counts of criminal mischief to a door, one in Longden Hall and one in Lucy Rowland Hall, criminal mischief to a picnic table belonging to a Greencastle resident, criminal mischief to landscaping on the property of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and criminal mischief to a sign and to a television in Bishop Roberts Hall according to the Office of Public Safety's activity log.
All of this is aside from the email DePauw students received on Monday Nov. 4 at 1:35 p.m. which informed the student body that Public Safety officials had documented 17 damaged vehicles. According to the email, the damaged cars were found primarily on College Street, Lincoln Street, Olive Street parking lot, College Street parking lot and the Julian Science and Mathematics Center parking lot areas.
"It appears that around 6 a.m. on Sunday, an individual vandalized the vehicles and other property," Director of Public Safety Angie Nally said in the email.
"I woke up that Sunday morning and there was a Public Safety officer at the [Kappa Alpha Theta] house writing down police reports," junior Sarah Crandall said. "That's when my friends told me that my car was one of the ones vandalized."
Nally stated that the issue was still under investigation, but that from the video footage Public Safety has from the security cameras she believes the majority of the vandalism to be the work of one person. However, they have not yet identified who this person might be.
"It's not like CSI where you can go 'zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom' and zoom right in on them," Nally explained. "It's more like, 'zoom.' I can tell you what clothes they're wearing."
Through the "Silent Witness" feature that was included in Monday's email from Public Safety, Nally has gained a bit more information.
As this information has not yet yielded a suspect and the University is not responsible for the damaged property, those whose cars were vandalized must hope insurance will cover the damage or pay for it out of pocket.
"All I've done so far is pick up the police report from the Public Safety Office and give it to my insurance company," Crandall said. "Hopefully it gets covered by them."
Nally also believes that this same person may also be responsible for the other damaged property, including the vandalized picnic table and landscaping. Though she admitted the possibility of the vandalism being the work of a guest, Nally said there is a "likely probability" of it being a student.
"I'm pretty upset that it happened. I don't understand why someone would take the time to vandalize 17 cars, or vandalize in general," Crandall said.
First-year Emma-Kate Sterry is a Bishop Roberts Hall resident who, excluding the damaging of the cars, finds the smaller acts of vandalism, including destruction of the television set, somewhat humorous.
"I think it's kind of funny. It's all guys, and they just get drunk and do destructive things," she said.
According to Sterry, the destruction of the television occurred when the students who it belonged to threw a Frisbee, cracking the screen. They replaced the cracked television and destroyed the old one.
"I don't know why they felt the need to throw it out the window though," Sterry added.
However, Nally feels that vandalism of any kind should not be encouraged, or laughed about.
"It's not okay to get drunk and tear up other people's stuff, it's just not. It's also not to celebrate the vandalism," Nally said. "It really is something I wish our students would stand up against."