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Vanessa Sanchez
Daily Lobo

Freshman Jordan Gillespie stands outside her dorm room on the second floor of Coronado Hall on Tuesday. Last Tuesday, an unidentified male broke into three unlocked dorm rooms including Gillespie’s. The “Coronado Creeper” touched Gillespie’s knee and the breast of another resident. UNMPD has identified one suspect in the incident.

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Safety an issue after 'Coronado Creeper'

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By Pat Lohmann | New Mexico Daily Lobo
Last updated: 11/04/09 11:33pm

All three of the doors opened by the “Coronado Creeper” last Tuesday night had doorknobs that did not lock automatically.

The “Creeper” broke into Coronado Hall and entered three unlocked rooms. He burglarized one woman’s room and touched two other women in their sleep.

Katie Dedman, who was awakened by the suspect before 4 a.m., said she had forgotten to lock her bedroom door before she went to sleep.

“Some doors automatically lock from the inside and others don’t for some reason,” she said. “Our neighbor’s door just automatically locks.”

UNM’s residence halls have two kinds of doorknobs — some have a dead bolt above the knob requiring the door to be re-locked when entering and leaving, and others lock automatically when they’re closed.

Patrick Call, director of Residence Life and Student Housing, said he does not know why there are inconsistent locking devices in residents’ rooms.

“The locking mechanisms of what they used and what they didn’t use are all before my time, so I can’t tell you why there’s two different kinds,” he said.

Call said an eight-year renovation plan for all the dorms is underway. The renovation will standardize the furniture, flooring and doorknobs of all dorm rooms, but Call said he does not know how secure the standardized locks will be or how soon they will be installed.

Besides the individual locks on each resident’s door, there are also locks on the residence hall’s exit doors. Every resident is given a perimeter key to enter his or her residence hall.

Call said that, while this adds some security to the residence hall, there are ways to get around the perimeter door locks.

“That’s one of the difficulties in keeping students’ doors open,” he said. “If he looks like a student, people are nice people and they hold the door open.”

Call said members of RLSH examined each perimeter door after the incident last Tuesday and found no signs of forced entry.

“Once we were notified that there was somebody in the building, we went to verify that all the doors of the building were locked and secured, so he had to get in the building following a resident,” he said.

RLSH also posted signs the day after the Coronado incident reminding students to lock their doors. Call encouraged students to question individuals if they try to enter residence halls without a key, and he said on-campus students should understand what is required to secure their dorm rooms.

“There has to be some self-responsibility in there,” he said. “Those folks have been living in those halls since August.”

Also, Call said emergency alert buttons are installed throughout the interior of each dorm, and RLSH posted signs last Wednesday to remind students to lock their doors.

Published November 4, 2009 in News

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6 comments

oddsocks

November 5, 2009 at 9:00 AM
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Not to nitpick, but what “emergency alert buttons”? I’m a Coronado resident (whose door is one of the ones that locks automatically), but I have never seen any of these “emergency alert buttons” that are “installed throughout the interior of each dorm”. There’s not even a manual fire alarm pull!

Again, not really trying to nitpick, but if there’s emergency alert buttons, why weren’t students informed at their floor meetings at the beginning of the year? That seems like something worth mentioning.

Keith

November 5, 2009 at 11:28 AM
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The dorms are situated between Central Ave. and University Hospital. Two places which are often occupied by less than savvy individuals. Would someone regularly leave a car unlocked or a the front door of a house unlocked in between these two places? I know I wouldn’t. A dorm room is one’s domicile, a place containing valuables and personal effects. While it is unfortunate what happened to these individuals, one should not overlook the importance of protecting his/her domicile by regularly locking one’s door.
The locks in question are deadbolts. While they may not “automatically” lock, they are far superior to the door knob locks, which will keep the door locked upon closing the door. While a bit more effort is required, one should not overlook the fact that the automatically locking locks can be fairly easily jimmied open using a credit card. How do I know? I am a former resident, and I had one of these locks. If I ever locked my keys in my room, to avoid paying the “lock-out” fee, I would slide a card between the frame and the door, and pop the door open. This can’t be done with a deadbolt lock.
With a little common sense (to always lock one’s door, especially at night), the deadbolt locks will help prevent future issues.

Annette

November 5, 2009 at 9:59 PM
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There is no “lock-out” fee for Coronado.

Keith

November 6, 2009 at 11:50 AM
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Annette: Check your residence hall handbook, page 15 under section 3. Lost Key Policy:

“Students temporarily locked out of their rooms due to a misplaced key are extended the privilege of checking out a room key from the front desk or being admitted to their room by a duty advisor four times each semester. After the fourth occasion, students will be charged a $10 fee for each key check out or duty advisor room access occurrence.”

Read more …

So, Coronado does have a fee for lock-outs. Don’t worry, though, you are like most other residents in not having read the handbook.

slowhike

November 6, 2009 at 6:33 PM
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This is acutally one of the most important articles that the lobo has seen fit to publish. Student safety should be the number one priority for the entire univiersity.

Get rid of some of those expensive ethnic diversity magnet organizations and hire some dormitory gards with the money saved.

Katherine Dedman

June 13, 2010 at 9:42 AM
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Just so that people are clear on the issue I would like to point out a few things:

1. To the Mr. Call, yes some of the responsiblity is on the students who had been there since August. But how dare you blame the victims without knowing us or why we forgot. That Sunday was the first night I was back from my best friend’s funeral. I had other things on my mind. Do you still think it’s fair to shift the blame to the victims?

Read more …

2. I seriously doubt the intruder was an outsider. In the third room he climbed on the heater rather than the chair to reach his victim. The chairs rock backwards and only residents are aware of this, especially in the dark. He didn’t want to risk waking her by loosing his balance on the chair.

Unfortunately none of us will ever know the full story because UNMPD dropped the case after the witnesses only looked at a photo line up, not a real one.

Oh and in case anybody is wondering, after the incident there was no talk to the victims of replacing their doorknobs or any others

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