BY MARA REVKIN

In print | Published April 27, 2006

Last Friday, at approximately 11:10 a.m., a female resident of Parrish Fourth floor east returned to her unlocked dorm room to find an unknown individual inside. The stranger, who had been standing in the middle of the room, left the room shortly thereafter. Several minutes after the suspect’s departure, the Parrish resident noted the disappearance of her mp3 player, a watch and cash that had been removed from her wallet. The student immediately reported the incident to Public Safety.

Public Safety released a Bulletin later that afternoon which described the intruder as a “tall, thin African American male, 35 to 40 years old with short cropped hair wearing long pants and a T-shirt.” Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave said in an e-mail that “Swarthmore Police, the college deans, as well as Maintenance and Environmental Services staff were all immediately alerted with a description of the suspect.” Public Safety officers proceeded to scour the vicinity for signs of the suspect or the stolen property. “A detailed search of Parrish and the campus was made,” Redgrave said, though the search yielded no leads as to the suspect’s identity or whereabouts.

As of Tuesday night, Public Safety had not succeeded in locating the suspect. Residents of Parrish claimed that Friday’s incident was not an isolated occurrence; several female students recalled having witnessed the suspect wandering around the halls on previous occasions. “I had seen him lurking around earlier that day as well as the previous weekend,” said Jasmine Narang ’09.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time because we’ve never had a problem with security before,” Narang said, adding that the residents of her hall routinely leave their doors unlocked. “There’s definitely a culture of trust on our hall, so I felt totally violated when I heard that stuff had been stolen,” she said.

Sasha Shahidi ‘09 said that earlier in the week she had discovered a stranger in her room whose appearance matched the description provided by Public Safety. "When I heard about Friday’s incident, I realized in retrospect that the same person had been in my room," Shahidi said.

Shahidi had been gone from her room for less than 10 minutes when she returned to find an intruder standing inside. “He claimed to be the parent of a student, but it was pretty clear that he wasn’t there for any legitimate reason,” she said.

The suspect left without further incident, and Shahidi said that nothing was stolen. “I didn’t report the incident to Public Safety because he didn’t take anything and I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt in these situations,” she said. “We’re so sheltered here that we forget this kind of thing happens all the time outside of Swat.”

Because Parrish houses a number of administrative offices in addition to student dorm rooms, the several entrances are usually kept unlocked and the building experiences heavy traffic at all hours of the day. However, Redgrave denied that the accessibility of the dorm to outsiders makes it any more likely to be victimized by theft. “The history of thefts from Parrish residence rooms does not support a notion that the building is more vulnerable than other residence halls,” Redgrave said.

The Parrish RAs are planning to meet later in the week to discuss strategies for reduce the threat of future incidents.

In a separate incident that has not been linked to a particular suspect, Parrish residents discovered Monday morning that several loads of laundry left to dry in the basement overnight had been saturated with urine. According to Parrish RA Jayanti Owens ’06, the incident most likely took place on Sunday night. “Four of the dryers in the basement were urinated in and several loads of clothes were peed on. Sadly, this event demonstrates a lack of respect by members of either the Parrish community, or more broadly, the Swarthmore community,” Owens said.

The Parrish RA’s will hold an all-dorm meeting on Sunday to discuss student concerns regarding the the recent incidents.

“Obviously this is completely revolting and the RA’s will be meeting later in the week to discuss the incident,” said Jayanti Owens ’06, a Parrish RA.

Public Safety could not comment on whether the laundry vandalism was related to the Parrish intruder.

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