Ben Tupper was repairing damage from a break-in two days ago when an unusual group caught his eye.

Three men, one shirtless and one holding a clipboard, were pointing at a house across the street near a woman sitting parked in a white van.

‘They had sunken eyes, their teeth were messed up,’ said Tupper, a landlord who has suffered five break-ins in his 13 years of renting out houses in the East neighborhood. ‘It wasn’t like the normal people you see on Livingston Avenue in any way whatsoever.’

The men said a woman named Sue had sent them there to do an estimate on the roof. But Sue didn’t own the house — Tupper did.

‘The minute I said, ‘I’m the owner,’ they couldn’t get out of there fast enough,’ he said. ‘They all just started jogging to the white escape vehicle parked right there on the side of the road.’

Tupper suspects they were the same people who robbed the house he owns on 820 Livingston Ave. on Aug. 7.

This summer, the East neighborhood suffered at least seven break-ins, said Michael Rathbun, assistant chief at Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety. Some students said the majority of residents do not take enough precautions to prevent break-ins, while school officials related them to timing.

Break-ins typically spike when students are away for breaks, Rathbun said. But he estimated that 95 percent of SU-area crimes came from students not locking doors and windows.

‘They don’t want to lock their friends out,’ Rathbun said.

One or two people are usually responsible for strings of burglaries, which lower when the suspects are caught, Rathbun said. But he emphasized students should still lock their doors and windows.

‘I would hope that students take some precautions,’ he said.

Alexis Herrera has locked his doors ever since criminals stole his electronics from DellPlain Hall last fall, he said.

‘After that, we developed some sort of paranoia about leaving our doors unlocked,’ said Herrera, an undeclared junior in the L.C. Smith School of Engineering and Computer Science, who lives on Ostrom Avenue.

His housemate, Armando Castro, purchased insurance for his items after two video cameras and an iPod were stolen during the same DellPlain incident.

Castro, a junior management major, said he felt a sense of being unsafe after the robbery.

More students leave their doors unlocked during the school year as opposed to the summer, said Darya Rotblat, director of the Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services.

‘The opportunity to break in does not exist as much during the summer,’ she said.

Rotblat walks through the East neighborhood once a week and always finds at least one house with the door wide open, she said.

But most students take the necessary precautions to prevent break-ins, she said.

Some students living off campus disagree.

‘Most kids are vulnerable at this school,’ said Sam Morgan, a senior history major who lives on Livingston Avenue.

Students have to be robbed or undergo an incident to take the necessary precautions to prevent break-ins, Morgan said.

‘I think most kids don’t think about that right off the back,’ he said.

Emily Zupanick admitted she was naïve about the precautions until she got robbed in her home on 820 Livingston Ave., the same house where landlord Tupper suspects he met the robbers on the street before they fled in a white van.

The suspects didn’t break into her home once, but twice. They stole laundry and quarters around 4 a.m. on Aug. 6 as she slept inside.

When she left for New York City the next day, the robbers busted the side door and stole her roommate’s TV during the afternoon.

Zupanick stayed in a hotel for a few days after returning from New York City because she feared the robbers were watching the house, she said.

‘I’d never felt more powerless before in my life,’ said Zupanick, a senior mechanical engineering major.

Police received the license plate numbers of the suspects after the landlord saw them leave.

But as Zupanick looked back on the break-ins, she said students have to lock their doors and windows.

‘People are pretty naïve until it happens to you,’ she said. ‘I know I was.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on August 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm