Quincy Rooms Burglarized

At about 1 a.m. Sunday morning, Mark E. Lee '01-'02 woke to cries of "Anyone home?" and loud banging on the door of his suite in Quincy House.

"I thought maybe it was just someone fooling around," Lee said.

But when Lee got up from bed to investigate, he discovered three unknown males, one rummaging through his roommate's belongings.

"I got up and noticed that there was movement in my roommate's room," Lee said. "I realized that it was a complete stranger taking [his jewelry] chains and headphones."

Lee yelled at the individual, a 16 to 17-year-old black male, about five feet, eight inches in height with a medium build. The intruder was wearing a red knit winter hat, a dark, puffy winter jacket and jeans, Lee said.

Surprised by Lee's appearance, the trespasser fled the bedroom, and Lee chased him downstairs to the common room.

"I noticed there were two other people in the common room and the three of them took off down the hallway as fast they could," Lee said.

Lee was not able to get a good look at the two intruders, but described them as black males wearing winter jackets.

The men two in the common room stole five movies, but the other intruder did not get away with anything, Lee said.

"We think the guy upstairs was going to take [my roommate's] laptop, and the police took his headphones and laptop for fingerprints," Lee said.

A room down the hall from Lee's was also burglarized that night.

"There was a party on the third floor so there were a lot of peoplewandering around the building. There were these three, I assume, high school kids who were seen wandering the halls for two or three hours," said Lesley B. Townsend '01, whose room was burglarized. "They came into my room while I was downstairs and I didn't even know they were there...They took some of my stuff including my passport. Now I am supposed to go to Jamaica for spring break and they have my passport"

Lee said a false sense of security among Quincy residents may have contributed to the crime.

"We leave our door propped open a lot and our door doesn't always latch all the way," Lee said. "Many rooms here on the sixth floor use coat hangers to keep the doors propped open all the time."

The Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) sent out an advisory e-mail yesterday to warn students of the theft.

HUPD urges anyone with information regarding the incident to call the Criminal Investigation Unit at (617)495-1796.