Eight vehicle thefts, including that of five bicycles, two scooters and one car, as well as numerous auto-burglaries, have been reported on campus this fall semester and are currently being investigated by Lafayette College Public Safety.
According to Jeff Troxell, the director of Public Safety, this is an unusually high amount of criminal activity involving vehicles for this short of a time frame.
According to the department’s annual Fire and Safety report, there were single motor vehicle thefts reported in both 2023 and 2022 on-campus and one off-campus in 2023.
Public Safety has not determined if these instances are related, but the thieves are expected to be unaffiliated with the college and not residents of Easton. The college is thoroughly investigating all accounts and taking measures to better monitor student vehicles to prevent future burglaries, according to Troxell.
“We have not identified anyone in particular at this point, but we’re onto some leads that we’re following up on,” Troxell said. “We’re doing surveillance, we’re reviewing closed-circuit TV footage, we’re doing direct patrols around the bicycle area.”
Public Safety has placed covert camera equipment on a light post outside of Keefe Hall to monitor the bicycles stored out front. There has been a particular focus on monitoring bicycles since five were reported as stolen in only two months, according to Troxell.
“We try to catch them in the act, that’s the best way,” he said. “It would help us if people could report suspicious activity.”
“When people call at the moment, we can respond quickly and it helps us out,” he added.
Aiden Michell’s ‘25 car was burglarized on Oct. 25 between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. while parked outside of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house on Reeder Street.
Michell reported that around $50 in cash and two deactivated debit cards were stolen. Michell said that he left his car unlocked.
Public Safety only knew of the crime after recovering Michell’s debit cards from a stolen vehicle that did not belong to him. Michell said that he did not report the break-in to Public Safety because he did not have time.
“It’s a little bit violating to have your stuff gone through,” Michell said. “Luckily, they didn’t take anything else. I had a bunch of equipment in there for the FTX coming up and that would have been a big deal if they had taken that.”
Michell said he was aware of two other students whose cars were broken into, and claimed the thieves were caught on camera wearing black “COVID-19” masks.
The college sent out two campus-wide emails from Public Safety encouraging students to register their vehicles, keep track of their serial numbers and report any suspicious activity to minimize burglaries.
Chris Nappo ‘27, a student who keeps an unregistered bike on campus, expressed amusement at Public Safety’s response to the thefts.
“I think it’s a bigger responsibility for students to just lock up their bikes properly,” he said.
