A student and a housekeeper recently found a man roaming the basement of Walker Hall dormitory.
Jake Harrell, religion freshman, was doing his laundry Oct. 19 in the basement of the dorm when he saw a man walk out of a storage room, walk to the bathroom and then walk back to the storage room.
“At first I thought maybe he was a facilities worker because he was wearing boots,” Harrell said. “I was unconcerned.”
Leonor Murillo, housekeeper in Walker Hall, said the man didn’t look like a student and was wearing jeans, a burgundy hoodie, no shoes, and carried a black backpack. She described him as about 5-foot-7-inch and caucasian with reddish-brown hair and a beard.
“He looked suspicious, like he was just turning back and forth, like he was panicked,” Murillo said.
Harrell said the man’s multiple backpacks and ragged clothes led him to think he was homeless.
Murillo asked Harrell if he knew if the man was a student. Harrell could not identify the man, so Murillo called facilities.
Mark Clouse, director of facilities, came to the dorm to handle the situation. Clouse was unavailable for comment last week.
“A maintenance guy comes into Walker less than 10 minutes later, and what should have happened is he should have come with a police officer, but he didn’t. He was by himself,” Harrell said.
Clouse unlocked the door to the storage room, asked the man for his ID and reached for his phone to call campus police, Harrell said.
“That’s when the man said, ‘I’ll show you my ID,’ and he bucked up to him, and then he bolted toward the stairs, through the door and out the building,” Harrell said. “It was like, the scariest thing I have ever been through. I thought the maintenance guy was going to tackle him, but he didn’t. The man got out, and he got away. The thoughts that ran through my head were, ‘What if he had a bomb? What if he had a gun? How long has he been here? What if he had bad intentions?’ It was very scary. My mom was very upset.”
Officials should take action to prevent incidents like this from happening again, Harrell said.
“I wish the doors in Walker Hall were more like the doors in Banning or the doors in the gym where you swipe, it unlocks them, and you can open them on your own and close it behind you,” he said. “Because that’s how I assume he got in.”
Harrell said he always makes sure to wear his ID in case of misidentification.
“You can’t know for certain if someone is a student unless they have their ID. That’s why I wear mine on my neck just in case the police are involved ever,” he said. “I want someone to know I’m a student. I think that’s how employees should be treated, too.”
Lane Chapman, elementary education freshman, swiped his student ID at Walker Hall and entered the building with a friend when he saw a man enter behind him.
“He immediately knew where he was going, which was why I didn’t think anything of it,” Chapman said. “He walked into Walker, walked past the elevators to the back staircase, and then my friend and I just kind of went about our day.”
It wasn’t until later, Chapman said, that he talked to Harrell and realized the man he described matched the man Chapman had seen.
“He just waltzed in,” Chapman said. “That makes me think that wasn’t the first time, and it also makes me think, ‘Why does this door stay open so long that anyone can just walk in?’”
Casey Kreger, director of housing, said the reason the doors in Walker Hall stay open for a certain period of time is to comply with regulations from the American Disabilities Act.
“Due to ADA and people mobility, etcetera, the doors need to stay open for a certain time,” he said. “The point of having automatic doors would be for the ADA compliance by federal law.”
Kreger said housing officials would consider adjusting how long the door stays open to keep unidentified people from entering the building.
“As long as the window was long enough to let somebody in with a wheelchair without having it collapse on them, the window of the door actuator could be adjusted to a certain period. It could definitely be an option,” he said.
Neither Chapman nor Harrell have heard anything from housing or facilities about the intrusion.
“At the time, when I heard Jake talk about it, I was like, ‘that’s pretty weird,’ and we kind of laughed about it, but at the same time, this is pretty sketchy. The fact that this happened, and no one knew about it, and if Jake wasn’t down there at the time, how long would he have been there?” Chapman said.
Kreger said he thinks the man was only there that day.
“The maintenance workers were actually in the room the day before due to a bunch of renovation and planning stuff,” he said.
Police Chief Jennifer Rodgers said campus police should be called first in these situations.
“We prefer that students and staff call us instead of taking things into their own hands,” Rodgers said. “We could’ve tried to identify the man.”
OCUPD can give intruders on campus a “notice to vacate,” which is an agreement that both the trespasser and campus police sign. It states that the person is not allowed to come back on campus or they’ll be arrested, Rodgers said.
“We usually do this, or they’ll keep coming back,” she said.
Harrell said his mother suggested the police officers who regularly patrol Walker Hall should check closets in the dorms.
“I don’t think this will happen again, but there are things that could have happened to prevent it,” he said. “Nothing bad came out of it. Nobody was hurt, but it is a safety concern.”
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