TEXAS FOUR UNIVERSITIES VICTIMS OF COMPUTER THEFT 4 campuses' burglaries likely linked - The Daily Texan - Top Stories
At least four university police departments will meet later this month to compare notes on a string of daring and possibly related campus burglaries that have been occurring over a span of several months.

Dell computers were stolen from the University, Texas State University-San Marcos, St. Edwards University in Austin and Trinity University in San Antonio. Police said most of the crimes occurred in the evening in buildings in which the computers were in plain sight.

Police think the burglaries were related because most of the property stolen was the same brand, the crimes occurred in visible areas, and in most cases, the thieves broke into the buildings in the same way.

UTPD said nine monitors and two CPUs were stolen from Room 16 of the Main Building.

"That's a high-profile area in the heart of campus. For someone to risk going in there and doing something like that is pretty bold," said Harold Menefee, the UTPD sergeant assigned to the case.

In most of the robberies, doors had been pried open, probably with a crowbar and screwdriver, police said.

The Texas State campus was burglarized several times during a one-week period, the Texas State University police said. One of the burglaries happened in the Nueces Building, which also houses the campus police department.

"I don't know if they were that familiar with campus," said Jeb Thomas, a TSUPD investigator.

The thieves stole Dell CPUs and laptops from at least three campus buildings at Texas State.

"What's disconcerting to us is unlike the majority of our thefts, which are crimes of opportunity, this was a premeditated burglary," Thomas said. "They came here with the intention of taking stuff."

The burglary at St. Edwards occurred while classes were in session, just after 8 p.m., in an active area of campus.

"[The burglars] were making a lot of noise," said Ron Willis, the chief of police at St. Edwards. "They're either very bold or very stupid thieves."

Willis said he can't understand why the thieves would steal university computers, which he said are typically older than other models and won't garner much on the black market.

"Why someone would risk going to the pen to steal your typical university computer doesn't compute to me," Willis said.

A witness said she saw a man run out of the building where the crime occurred, Willis said.

Pete Perez, assistant director of the Department of Campus Safety at Trinity University, said he believes the thefts there have been occurring since December and that the thieves pose as students. So far, they have stolen five CPUs and some flat-screen monitors, he said.

Angel Cruz, director for information security at the University, said that in general, CPU thefts pose an information security risk, but his department determined that the computers stolen from the University contained no sensitive information