PLU Community Alert — Car Prowl Awareness

There have been several reported instances of car prowling on or immediately adjacent to campus in the past two weeks.

Currently the car prowls tend to be focused on lower campus. Although upper campus has experienced some. Incidents have occurred in the early morning hours and during mid-mornings on normal business days.

Unfortunately, car prowling is a common crime where there are large concentrations of parked cars. A college campus is similar to shopping malls and apartment complexes where this activity is also common. They are difficult crimes to prevent but here are some things to consider:

• If you observe suspicious behavior from individuals, please contact Campus Safety immediately. A helpful preventative measure is extra vigilance from the PLU community to coincide with extra Campus Safety patrol efforts.
• Based on previous incidents, the suspects commonly wander around parked cars looking in windows. They may be on bicycles riding around parking lots or back and forth along the street.
• Avoid leaving bags, boxes or belongings visible in your car, even if they are not valuable. A car prowler may force access to your car before determining a lack of value.
• We recommend parking in campus parking lots versus the street. The parking lots don’t guarantee your car will be safe but the extra lighting and camera coverage are helpful deterrents.
• Get a “Club” anti-theft device and/or install an alarm.
• If you store your car on campus be sure to check it periodically for damage/theft
  • Narrowing the time frame down for incidents can help with the investigation
• We encourage community members to report suspicious activity to our office via phone or the OmniGo Community smart phone app.

Thank you for helping to keep PLU safe.

Campus Safety – 253-535-7441