In the six weeks that Jumbos have been back on campus this semester, the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) has received at least eight reports of robberies from Cousens Gymnasium.
Items stolen from locker rooms and the cubbies in the exercise area range from sports items, such as swimming goggles, to personal item belongings, such as cell phones and credit cards.
According to TUPD Captain Mark Keith, the number of thefts at the gym tends to increase or decrease sporadically. In the past weeks there has been an increase, he said.
People outside the Tufts community are responsible for some of the more recent thefts, even though a valid Tufts ID is required to be shown upon entering the gym.
There is a student at the security desk responsible for checking ID cards and a security officer present in case an issue arises, TUPD Lieutenant Charles Lonero said.
But according to Rick Miller, Director of Facilities and Field Management for the Athletics Department, the gym has a variety of alternate entrances, enabling people to enter the building without ever walking by the front desk.
Specifically, Miller has found that minors from the surrounding community present a consistent challenge to gym security.
"It's always been somewhat of a problem with the younger kids from the area," he said. "They live here. They know ways of getting in the building."
One well-known alternate entrance is a side door of Halligan which is attached to Cousens.
TUPD is aware of the problem, and is looking into installing a card reader into the Halligan entrance, Lonero said.
The card reader would deny access to those who lack identification and gather information on those who do enter, according to Miller.
"They will know who that person is [and] what time they came into the building," he said. "It will help us control and keep track of who's coming into the building." Another problem, according to Lonero, has been propped-open doors, which TUPD hopes to respond to by adding door alarms.
But before TUPD officers can initiate these changes, they must find the necessary money. "[We are] looking for funding to make changes," Lonero said. TUPD has met with members of the administration and gym staff to discuss options. According to Miller, all the new security measures should be in place by September.
In the mean time, TUPD is currently taking other steps to combat the rise in thefts. "One thing that we've done very recently is to have a uniformed presence at different times," Keith said.
Still, TUPD Sergeant Robert McCarthy has found that keeping track of people's belongings during high traffic times at the gym can be a difficult task for officers because it is hard to determine if people are taking things they actually own.
"Everything's piled up [near the cubbies]," he said. "You don't know what they're taking."
Even with the recent robberies, not all gym patrons feel insecure. Sophomores Michael Collado and Alex Clough, both of whom frequent Cousens, said they had not heard of the robberies, but understand how they can happen.
"The system is very susceptible to robbery," Clough said.
Collado said that although somebody is usually at the front entrance collecting IDs, the security is "a little lax in general."
But according to McCarthy, even though he said his department does the best it can to prevent thefts from happening, much of the responsibility lies in the hands of the students.
"We try to go through there. We try to put up the warnings [to not] leave anything valuable there," he said. "If people made sure they didn't leave anything valuable out, that would help a lot," he said.
