At about 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning, Campus Police officers arrested Nicole McLaughlin and Jonathan Spencer of Amherst and Natal Gomez of Belchertown and charged them with larceny, according to Assistant Chief of Campus Police Ed Zaniewski. The suspects, all 19 years old, were arraigned Monday at the Eastern Hampshire District Court.
Lissa Minkel '07 arrived at Cohan at around 12:30 a.m. and put down her coat and bag in a common space on the first floor. At about 1:30 a.m., as she was leaving the party, she could not find any of her belongings, including her wallet, keys, ID, cell phone and iPod.
"I went upstairs for about 20 minutes and I came back downstairs because I heard the party was going to be shut down," Minkel said. "When I came downstairs, all the coats, along with everything else, were gone. There was nothing in any of the common areas. I had a friend with me and his coat was gone too."
Just after 2 a.m., Luke Murumba '05 heard from a friend that a suspicious-looking girl had been seen walking out of Murumba's suite on the first floor of Cohan. His friend described the suspect, and Murumba later noticed that some cash and his roomate's iPod were missing from their common room.
Murumba and his roomate, Francis Lee '05, were aware that there were still parties going on in the social dorms, so they went down to look for the suspect at a party in Crossett Dormitory.
Murumba could not find the girl in Crossett, but he identified a female fitting the description in the passenger seat of a vehicle near Crossett. He flagged down a Campus Police officer who was on parole nearby. "We stopped the car by jumping in front of it and telling the girl to get out so that we could talk to her," Murumba said. "She refused to get out and the car took off in reverse. Thankfully, the girl and her friends didn't know the campus and so didn't make it very far. Francis and I chased them down while on the phone with Campus Police. By the time we had caught up with them, though, the girl I recognized had disappeared. She had left Francis' iPod in the car."
The officer called for assistance, and when backup arrived, they stopped the vehicle. The officers detained and questioned the suspects and searched the vehicle after receiving consent from the driver. They recovered an iPod and Minkel's keys from the car. McLaughlin, Spencer and Gomez each denied involvement in the thefts.
By the time Minkel arrived at the Campus Police station to report her coat and bag stolen, the officers had already stopped the vehicle and detained the suspects. "I went to the police station and the officers told us to sit down because they had apprehended a vehicle," she said.
Minkel blames the thefts on the presence of non-Amherst students at parties at the College. "I don't think there is anything [the College] can do," she said. "You can't control who comes to a party, especially with the Five College system. It isn't hard for an non-Amherst person to go to a party. Most of the facilities are relatively easy to get into, which makes me question my safety on campus. At the next party in Marsh [House, Minkel's dorm], I am going to lock my door. Students should be aware that [the College] might not be as safe as we think it is."
Minkel acknowledged in retrospect the ease with which thieves can steal belongings from a common space. "When we had to fill out the police report, we had to say we left them in a common area," she said. "It was kind of embarrassing to say my things were stolen because I had left them out in the open."
Zaniewski stressed that students should always lock their doors and never should leave important belongings in common spaces "You shouldn't leave valuables, credit cards or room keys in your coat pocket," he said. "If you live in a dorm where these events take place, lock your door because there are a lot of non-Amherst College students in the area."
Minkel remains unclear about the thief's logic. "I don't know what he was going to do with my keys," she said.
Zaniewski said that the thieves achieved their goal because no one was paying attention to them. "This was a crime of opportunity," he said. "They were looking for the easy, unlocked door. It takes only seconds."