Equipment stolen from athletic media relations

There was no evidence of forced entry when several laptops were noticed missing on Friday morning.

The office of Don Weast, assistant athletic director for media relations, was most affected by the theft.

Weast left his office at 113 HPER at 4:30 p.m. on April 10. He then went to the track meet at Jones Field in Welch stadium, just feet from the HPER building. At 8 p.m. that same day, he returned to the office briefly when he noticed the door to the office was unlocked.

“The door is an entrance to a storage room,” Weast said. "To access an equipment storage room, one must go through the media center office door. “I thought someone had to get equipment so I didn’t think anything of it.”

During the time Weast was in the office he did not notice anything missing or any damage to the office.

At 8 a.m. Friday, Josh Slaughter, assistant media relations director, discovered several laptops were missing.

“He usually works on them so we didn’t know they were gone until we were looking for them,” Weast said.

Weast believes it is likely the laptops were stolen sometime between 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Thursday rather than overnight.

In addition to the missing laptops, shoes were missing from an athletic locker in another part of the HPER building. It was unclear whether or not this incident is related to the media center theft.

Chris Hoover, public service executive of police and safety, was out of town when the theft occurred but assured that the officers at the scene compiled a thorough report. It is against Police and Safety policy for officers to speak directly with the press.

The theft, lacking a forced entry, comes just weeks following three students were arrested for stealing the master keys to the residence halls. While Hoover declined to comment if there were any leads or suspects.

Theft of university property is covered under the student code of conduct passed in 2007 by the Associated Student Government. It is unclear whether any apprehended suspects, if students, would be processed under the code.