Winter campus security report

By Emily Macphail

Along with the usual calls to open locked office doors and escort students to various locations on campus, Campus Security has had its fair share of serious, amusing and just plain bizarre calls over the past three months.



November

In November, a suspicious hand-addressed package that arrived in the Engineering complex caused concern. The package, originating from Saudi Arabia and wrapped in packing tape, proved to contain only a less-than-threatening bundle of references.

Also in November, an experiment in the basement of the Calgary Centre of Innovative Technology building started a fire which required an evacuation while staff and the Calgary Fire Department attempted to cool the experiment and remove it to a safe location.

There was also a wind storm which resulted in property and landscape damage and the theft of a ceiling-mounted projector from the MacKimmie Library.



December

While the total number of incidents shrank to 98 from November’s 164, total losses rose from $21,668.64 to $39,895, which is accounted for when the amount of property damage in December’s incidents is taken into account.

One Yamnuska Hall resident left a shower running all night, flooding that room and every room beneath. In Olympus Hall, an intoxicated student caused flooding from the fifth floor to the basement by falling into a toilet and breaking it, causing water leakage for roughly one hour.

In a separate broken-toilet episode, an unknown individual ignored a “do not flush” sign, resulting in raw sewage spilling from a pipe that was in the process of being replaced. A light fixture was soaked and a small area of the floor in Bound and Copied was covered, but as books and materials had already been coated in plastic for maintenance, no contamination of books or store products occurred.

Lastly, in an unfortunate emergency response, security responded to a call for medical assistance in the Education Tower, but all responders were then trapped in one of the building’s elevators, forcing a second response unit to be dispatched. Security and one member of the Calgary Fire Department were able to provide assistance until the second group of paramedics arrived.



January

January kicked off eventfully with reports of the presence of weapons on the Health Sciences campus. The firearms turned out to be only replicas of an ak47 and a Remington 700, both of which were being used as props for filming a spoof movie. Students were informed that guns are not permitted on campus, and the replicas were removed without incident.

Several thefts occurred throughout the month, including money taken during a break-and-enter of the satellite bookstore in the Information Communication Technologies building, a student’s pilfering of a large amount of food in a black garbage bag from a vendor in MacHall, and most strangely, the removal of an entire parking meter from its concrete base in Lot 59.

Adding to the flood roster for the past few months, one Castle Hall resident took the prize for the longest chain of unfortunate events in one day. He took a phone call while cooking dinner, causing him to burn his food, which then set off the smoke alarm, which distracted him from the fact that he had started running a bath, which resulted in a flood. The tenant did attempt to mop up the mess, but did not complete the task before he left to watch a hockey game. The water ended up flowing into the suite, the adjacent hallway, and the suite and hallway below, necessitating the attendance of rapid response and risk management.

Campus Security Director Lanny Fritz confirmed the prevalence of water-related property damage on campus, saying “we actually get called for a lot of floods.”

There were a total of 187 incident reports in January, with total losses of $24,520. January has exceeded the average monthly incidents for last year, but stayed under average monthly losses. In 2011, there was a total of 1,657 incidents and $330,622.89 in losses.

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