GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Plastic now sits in place of a back car window after someone busted into Aquinas College student Kasy Shadduck's car over the weekend.
"Saw this first and I was like 'great, there's glass everywhere, all over the place,'” said Shadduck. "It was a bit shocking to say the least, I feel like now anybody can get in my car if they want to."
Director of Campus Safety Kevin Kwiatkowski says around 6 a.m. Sunday, three cars rolled into the parking lot near the college's Performing Arts Center and an unknown number of people got out and broke into ten cars.
"As soon as we found out who we notified every student involved. We had officers check all the lights, just make sure there was only isolated to this area. And we did notify all the students involved. And then we sent all the emergency message to the campus," said Kwiatkowski.
Student Claire Hines usually parks her car in this parking lot, but didn't this weekend. She was with her friend when she found out her friend’s car was broken into.
"One of my friends gets a call from campus safety as we're like sitting around the table eating breakfast, and we're like, 'yeah, like your car got broken into, you might want to like head down to the parking lot,'" said Hines. “That's when we're like, 'oh my gosh,' you don't think it's gonna happen to someone close to you."
Kwiatkowski says he and other public safety officials know there is a trend of car break-ins in the City of Grand Rapids and tried to urge people to protect their cars as best as possible.
"We always stress that you always want to lock all your valuables, take them with you, or put them out of sight and make sure you lock your vehicle," said Kwiatkowski.
But students like Shadduck say more cameras should be added to campus in better places.
"I think more cameras. Two hundred cameras? Sure, that's fine. But like, what are the cameras that are saving our stuff? Like the parking lots where the stuff actually happening?" said Shadduck.
Aquinas College is working with GRPD on the case.
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