Cold weather keeps most criminals home

University Police reported a decrease in campus crime over spring break and attributed the lower statistics to the cold weather and the weekend blizzard. University Police Sergeant Larry Salotti said last night that crime over break was lower than in years past, especially those crimes involving students. The only serious crime last week was a robbery at knifepoint which occurred Thursday evening behind the E.F. Smith building on 34th Street, Salotti said. Salotti said two males -- one carrying a knife -- stole $15 in cash from a male student at around 10:30 p.m. Thursday and fled east toward 33rd Street. In addition, it appears that burglaries and thefts over break decreased. Prior to spring break, Residential Living and University Police officials said that a main focus of security over break would be to prevent crimes against property, and in particular, burglaries in the High Rises. University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich said before break that a police officer would be stationed to walk the halls of the High Rises 24 hours a day during break. But at least one attempted High Rise burglary has already been reported to University Police. A College junior, who lives in High Rise South and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said when he returned from break on Friday, he found pry marks around his door which looked like an attempt to force entry. "It was evident that someone tryed to pry their way in[to my room] but they were unsuccessful," the College junior said. "Residential Living and Physical Plant had to change my lock and put a metal plate around it." Kuprevich said last night that the success of the High Rise patrols cannot be fully tallied until all students return to campus. "So far it seems [the High Rise patrols] went very well," Kuprevich said. "It is too early to tell [what the final results are] because we do not have enough people back." The College junior said University Police need to reevalutate their procedures for vacation periods because, "they added police patrol and there were still incidents." Residential Living Director Gigi Simeone said last night that her department will consult with University Police to learn their assessment of the break's security. "Usually we like to wait until everyone's back and settled down to see if there are any problems that were not visible," she said. "We should know that within a couple of days." Kuprevich said the weather was a definite factor in the lower crime figures, but added that he was unsure if it was the only one. "Certainly the weather was a factor," he said. "Whether it was the full factor or not . . . that's hard to tell. Patrols were kept up and we maintained staffing [during break]."