Electronics Stolen from Leverett House

Four students are missing electronics and jewelry following a series of thefts in Leverett House Monday afternoon. Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) spokesperson Steven G. Catalano said the range of items stolen from dorms in Leverett’s F Tower include a laptop, digital camera, jewelry and a discman.

Daniel L. Goodkin ’06, who lives on the first floor of F Tower, said that while he was eating lunch Monday, his Toshiba laptop and discman were stolen from his bedroom.

“My desk was messed up and all the cables were unplugged,” he said.

Goodkin said his roommate’s digital camera was stolen from his desk drawers.

“Our door doesn’t automatically lock,” Goodkin said. “There are five of us so someone’s always coming in and out.”

According to Goodkin, the thief left a walkman and movie ticket stub from a December showing of “Bad Santa” in Goodkin’s room.

Catalano said that HUPD was investigating the thefts and had a description of a “suspicious person seen in the building at the time of the theft,” but declined to release the description.

Catalano said that all the doors to suites that items were stolen from were either unlocked or propped open.

“We strongly encourage people not to prop doors at any time,” he said. “They

should never let people piggyback with them into the building.”

Catalano added that after a potential thief enters the building, he has “free reign” over it if people fail to lock their doors.

He said that there have been several occasions in the past years where students have seen someone acting suspiciously but do not report the person, only later to find out that thefts occurred in their Houses.

Leverett House Superintendent Paul J. Hegarty sent an e-mail to the House open-list Monday afternoon cautioning residents to keep doors secured.

“Lock your doors, in both cases the doors were left ajar,” Hegarty wrote.

Senior Tutor Catherine Shapiro sent an e-mail a few hours after Hegarty, warning residents with a similar message.

She said that leaving doors unlocked “comes at the expense of Leverite possessions and Leverite safety.”

Catalano said that it does not appear that the perpetrator was a Harvard student.

Catalano said that thefts in dorms are “not uncommon.”

In early February, HUPD arrested a 33-year-old man suspected of stealing electronics, credit cards and money from Kirkland and Dunster Houses.

Early last fall, a wave of thefts hit the Quad, where several students had electronics, jewelry and cash stolen.

—Staff writer Hera A. Abbasi can be reached at abbasi@fas.harvard.edu.