A whiteboard that reads "Lock the door even if you're home. Pop, lock and drop it," hangs on the wall of Julia Ries' Small Road apartment to remind her and her roommates to keep the door closed.
"I feel pretty safe in my apartment on South, but I always make sure that my door is locked, even if I am home," said Ries, a sophomore magazine and Spanish major.
Now she has another reason to keep her door locked.
After an armed robbery at 12:25 a.m. Saturday at 320 Winding Ridge Apartment 2 on South Campus, the safety of on-campus living is in question.
"I was scared for that night, and of course I was nervous, but now I'm not scared anymore because I always lock my door," said Sarah Chalek, a sophomore illustration major.
Chalek lived in the apartment complex on Winding Ridge where the robbery took place. The night of the incident, the Department of Public Safety came to her door at 1 a.m. and asked if she heard or knew anything about the people who lived in the apartment in question.
She said there were four police cars and a search dog present at the apartment and were at the 320 block of Winding Ridge for approximately an hour.
Three Syracuse University students and one former SU student were charged with first degree robbery, first degree burglary and first degree criminal use of a weapon with a misdemeanor charge of fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon.
"Sometimes I used to forget to lock my door, but I'm definitely going to be more conscious of it now," said Sara Hiller, a sophomore public relations major who lives on Lambreth Lane.
"After hearing about the apartment being broken into, it's a little unsettling," said Justin Gurevitch, a sophomore film major who lives on Small Road. "We don't leave our door locked all the time, so it's a bit disconcerting. But there is no more danger than before."
Gurevitch said there's not much more DPS can do to ensure safety on South. "People just can't be idiots by making sure that they don't have people in their house that they don't know," he said.
Evan Brown, a sophomore broadcast journalism major, lives on Small Road but has friends who live on Winding Ridge. He feels safe going back and forth between the apartments, but DPS should patrol more consistently, he said.
Freshman Natalie Cherbaka also said DPS should provide more perimeter security because "people can just walk over the lawn." Cherbaka lives in the Skyhall dorm on South Campus and is not concerned about security in the dormitory because after 8 p.m., residents have to swipe their ID card to enter the building.
She said the robbery was scary to hear about but "(DPS) should stop pestering my e-mail about the alerts."
DPS sent two mass e-mails to the student body about the robbery.
Brown said by doing simple tasks like locking doors, safety will not be an issue on campus.
"I feel safe to a fault," he said. "As long as you lock your doors and trust your roommates, it should be fine."
sdmusat@syr.edu
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