A burglary took place at the Fine Arts building of Bakersfield College sometime over the weekend of Feb. 6- Feb. 8. At least six iMacs were taken from FA 10. The suspect broke glass doors to get inside of the FA building and used an unknown pry bar type instrument to get inside the locked classroom, according to Christopher Counts, the director of Public Safety at BC.
Counts said that this is not the first burglary to occur at the FA building. On a separate occurrence, a computer and camera were taken from another area within the FA building. Counts said that he’d prefer to keep all dates and times of the burglaries unavailable at this time because this is on an ongoing investigation.
According to Amber Chiang, BC’s director of Marketing and Public Relations, BC is working with the Bakersfield Police Department. Chiang said that a report has been made with the BPD. According to Sergeant Joe Grubbs, BPD’s media and public relations contact, a case file and report cannot be found as of Feb. 17. Chiang said that BC is aware of when the burglary occurred and it is a key part of the investigation. She said she is unsure if the burglary qualifies as grand theft and did not want to discuss the cost of the stolen items. According to Apple’s website, one new 21.5 inch iMac starts at $1,099. Chiang said that this theft might be associated with another theft in Bakersfield.
“There was a forcible entry and the suspect entered a locked building,” she said. “This occurred not only at BC but at another location.”
David Koeth, the art department chair at BC, said that he believes the same suspect is involved in both of the FA building burglaries. He said that he did not want to divulge too much information regarding the case but that he’s sure public safety is conducting a thorough investigation. Koeth also said that BC’s open campus makes it more susceptible to possible issues.
“The nature of education and our country is that we’re open,” he said. “When you have such a facility, we can’t stop community members from just walking onto campus.”
Counts sent out a “bc_all” email regarding the burglaries. This type of email is sent to faculty, administration and other staff members of BC but not to students. As of Feb. 17, students were completely uninformed that a burglary had occurred on campus. This left students who have classes in FA 10 completely unaware that computers were taken from the classroom.
“I had no idea this happened,” said Giovanni Lopez, a student in Multimedia Reporting, a class that takes place in FA 10. “At first I thought they just moved the computers, but then I found out what happened.”
Lopez, 23, sat at one of the computers that was stolen and had work saved to the computer. He said that he sometimes finds BC Alerts annoying. These alerts are emails sent out to students about crimes and other similar occurrences on campus. No alert was sent to students regarding the burglary. Lopez said that he wished BC sent out an email about the theft, so that he would’ve known about it before coming to class.
“I thought, ‘Man that sucks, I lost all of my work,’” he said. “I would’ve liked to have known [about the burglary] because then I would know that I had to start over in this class without my work.”
Lopez said that he was surprised that the suspect was able to get away with so many computers without anybody noticing. Diana Greenlee, another student in the Multimedia class said that she was shocked there was a theft especially with all of the security present on campus.
“It’s disheartening to see these types of incidents go on,” she said.
The Multimedia Reporting class takes place from 6-8 p.m. and public safety officers were seen locking the FA building exterior doors after the class ended. An additional security camera can be seen in the FA building near FA 10. Counts said that it’s important to ensure all doors and offices are locked and that if someone sees an individual who appears out of place, to alert public safety. Because the investigation regarding the theft remains ongoing, Counts said there would be additional patrol checks of the FA building and the surrounding area.