HEMPSTEAD, NY Volume 82 Issue 13
The Hofstra
Chronicle
Tuesday February 28, 2017
Keeping the hofstra Community informed since 1935
Car larceny continues across campus By Laurel O’Keefe NEW S E D I TO R
Since the end of January, Hofstra’s Department of Public Safety has received 15 separate reports of larceny, theft of personal property or attempted larceny from vehicles. They say the surge of these crimes has been identifiably caused by one male suspect on a bicycle. “The last [claim] we had reported was the 15th of February. We think in 12 of the 15 cases the vehicles were left unlocked. We know for sure that nine [cars] were unlocked,” said Karen O’Callaghan, the director of Public Safety. Of the 15 reported incidents, only one showed signs of forced entry. Richie Dupkin, a senior drama major, was alerted on Jan. 28 that his car window had been broken. “My car was broken into and the right driver’s window was
completely shattered and hacked out. Public Safety found my car broken into and called my parents – because of the registration – to tell them and they told me,” Dupkin said. Dupkin’s car was locked and he claims nothing was stolen. Since this incident, other students have reported that their cars were opened and rummaged through and items from $200 cash to phone chargers were stolen. “For the most part it is a crime of opportunity. Whatever they can grab that might be of value was grabbed, a lot of phone or computer chargers, a GPS and loose change or currency is the majority of it,” O’Callaghan said. At the time of the incident, Dupkin’s car was parked in the lot in front of the Netherlands,
adjacent to Oak Street, the same location a majority of the other larcenies or attempted larcenies were reported. “A little more than half of them occurred in the Netherlands lots. But through our investigation, looking at video we have in the area, we did come up with a subject,” O’Callaghan
doors and when he found one that was unlocked he went in and grabbed the stuff.” Public Safety also believes that the subject is a non-student and since being identified as the cause of the crimes, the man was observed on the south side of campus and fled on his bicycle into the backstreets after Public Safety called out to him. After Dupkin’s car window was broken, he said he was told by Public Safety that there were no cameras pointing at the parking spot he was in, and that the only cameras are near the back turnstiles of the Netherlands. “Public Safety handled it by making a report and then nothing else further. I didn’t ask for police assistance because there were no cameras,” Dupkin said.
“My car was broken into and the right driver’s window was completely shattered and hacked out.” said. “We have a basic description and he was on a bicycle, going through the lots very quickly. You see at one point when a car pulls into the lot he hides between two cars. So he definitely was just trying all the
O’Callaghan recognized that the Netherlands lot was difficult to secure and said that after the initial incidents, Public Safety increased patrols in that area. “We patrol it all the time. We put extra Public Safety officers out, some not in uniform or in unmarked cars to sit in lots. The one thing we can’t do in Netherlands lot is lock it down because of the way it is set up. So we do extra patrols through there, but as I said, it was easier to get in and out so that is why a lot [of the larcenies] happened there and a lot happened on south campus because those lots are open.” On the cameras overlooking the lot, O’Callaghan said, “We have the newest cameras in there, the problem is the lighting in the parking lot makes it
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Japanese internment survivor implores tolerance By Jill Leavey STAFF WR I T E R
Students, faculty and community members gathered on Feb. 23 to listen to Sam Mihara’s harrowing experience in a Wyoming Japanese internment camp during World War II. Mihara, along with his family and friends, were relocated from his San Francisco home to Heart Mountain as a result of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which granted the removal of Japanese Americans from their homes into internment camps due to the rising tension between the United States and Japan. Mihara is a first generation Japanese American, and as such he has the full legal protection of the Constitution. In 1942, however, the executive order overlooked his constitutional
rights, a concept which he reiterated throughout his presentation. For three years he was dubbed “26737D” instead of Sam Mihara. His home was no longer the familiar Japantown in San Francisco, rather room “14-22-C” – a 20-by-20 foot barrack shared by his five-member family. He had to use a bathroom without dividers, just one of many limits on his privacy. There were curfews and rules strictly enforced by armed military personnel. Mihara and the other 120,000 Japanese Americans held throughout the country were released after three years. During his detention, Mihara’s family had to endure the passing of his grandfather, as well as his father going blind from inadequate healthcare. In 2011, Mihara helped create the Heart Mountain Wyoming
Foundation, a museum on the campsite. He went on to graduate from University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles graduate school with engineering degrees. Later, he worked as a rocket scientist with Boeing and has helped launch rockets into space. Mihara drew comparisons between racial intolerance towards Japanese to prejudices which those from the Middle East, in particular, experience today. “As a community, Japanese Americans were the first to help the plight of Muslims,” Mihara said. Audience members asked questions suggesting that they saw similarities between this legal failure and what courts will hear defense attorneys argue in upcoming challenges to President Trump’s Executive Order
13769, frequently referred to as the “Muslim Ban.” Mihara emphasized the importance of tolerance for cultures, and put his firsthand experience with racism in the context of the political atmosphere in 2017. He concluded his presentation
by explaining what factors allowed for this stain in American history. “Prejudice, hysteria and leaders fail[ing] led to this,” Mihara said. “I could see the characteristics of those three right now.”
The Japanese internment camp Heart Mountain in Wyoming.