2012
Volume 125 Issue 21
Monday, September 24, 2012
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1 by Ryan McCarthy
kansan.com
"IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU"
THIEVES PREY ON HOMES
RACHEL SALYER rsalyer@kansan.com
After a Labor Day trip away, Chris Ackerson opened the gate to the backyard of his Lawrence house that hled rented for more than a year.
After a long car ride, his two dogs needed to use the restroom.
"I honestly wanted to cry," Ackerson said. "Pretty much everything I had ever worked for or bought on my own, other than my furniture, was gone."
As Ackerson, a Wichita junior,
made his way into his backyard
Sept. 3 on the 1800 block of Illinois
Street, he felt sick to his stomach.
The storm door had been kicked
open and he stared into his now
empty living room.
The victim of a burglary, he called the Lawrence Police Department and learned he was the victim of a crime on the rise in Lawrence.
According to Kansas Incident Based Reporting Statistic numbers by LPD from the beginning of the year through June 30, 2012, LPD has responded to 331 incidences involving a burglar. Burglaries are up 33 percent when compared to the 248 burglaries for the first-half of the year in 2011.
Sgt. Trent McKinley, an LPD spokesman, said they began noticing the increase in March and began to see patterns after investigating.
Specifically, most of the increased burglaries in Lawrence have been aggravated, meaning someone is in
the home or structure at the time
the offense is committed.
McKinley said from March 17 to Aug. 27 there were approximately 83 aggravated residential burglaries reported in Lawrence. Force to gain entry was reported in six of the cases.
"I honestly wanted to cry. Pretty much everything I had ever worked for or bought on my own, other than my furniture, was gone."
ACKERSON
Burglary victim
"In the vast majority of those cases the doors were left unlocked," McKinley said. "After entering through an open or unlocked garage, front or side door, the burglar(s) would quickly grab purses or other valuable items and get out."
McKinley said the LPD has arrested eight people alleged to be involved in the burglary string. The most recent arrest was 18-year-old Cody Barnes, who was charged last week for his alleged involvement in four July burglaries.
But despite several arrests, the burglaries continue to happen and the pattern originally associated with it has changed.
"In late August, the vast majority were doors and windows that were left unlocked," McKinley said. "But
we are seeing more of a change with forced entries, and we don't know what to make of that yet.
On Sept. 17, two forced entry burglaries were reported. The first happened about 3:30 a.m. on the 1700 block of Ohio Street. McKinley said a neighbor called police after hearing glass breaking. The second burglary happened about 6:30 a.m. in a student house on the 1000 block of Tennessee Street. A resident heard someone breaking glass on the door and called police. In both cases, the suspects fled before police arrived.
Police have responded to several cases involving students, who McKinley said may be easier victims because they often rent houses and are accustomed to noise in the middle of the night.
"We had one case in particular where someone heard noise and assumed it was their roommate after a night of drinking," McKinley said. "It's important students realize that if you hear something, don't just assume. Get up and check it out."
If you do find or hear someone breaking in, McKinley said the best thing to do, aside from calling police, is to follow your natural reaction.
"Most of these people have not been confrontational," McKinley said, referring to the potential burglars. "Do what feels right. It may be to hide until they leave, to confront them or to call police as they are in your house."
SEE BURGLARY PAGE 7
FIRE
The Berkeley Flats apartment complex, 1123 Indiana St., caught fire Wednesday, causing $400,000 total in damage to 12 apartments and displacing 14 residents.
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
Disaster victims receive assistance
RACHEL SALYER
rsalver@kansan.com
Aaron Heintzelman returned from dinner Wednesday night to find fire trucks surrounding his apartment building and water flooding the street.
Heintzelman, a junior from Leavenworth, lived on the second floor of Berkeley Flats apartment complex which caught fire around 10:15 p.m. last Wednesday night. When he approached the burning structure that night, Heintzelman said he hoped it was not his apartment.
"With my string of luck, it would be my apartment," he said Wednesday night.
The apartment above his caught fire "due to improper discardment of smoking material" according to
a Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical press release. The fire at the 1123 Indiana St. complex caused a total of $400,000 in damage to 12 apartments and displaced 14 residents.
Jane Blotcher, executive director of the American Red Cross of Douglas County, said she was at the scene Wednesday night. Blotcher said that victims of disasters are usually in shock and hysterical, but the students she met with that night were just the opposite.
"Despite their loss, everyone was upbeat, filled with gratitude and friendly," she said.
Blotcher said Friday the Red Cross had met with 13 of the 14 students displaced by the fire. The organization provided emergency money for clothes and food. She said the Red Cross has had
a seven-year partnership with the University's Office of Student Affairs to help provide students with assistance not normally covered by the Red Cross. She said the Office of Student Affairs could replace damaged textbooks, laptops and other school-related necessities.
Joanna Antonik, a sophomore from Chicago, lives in an apartment next to the damaged building. She said she heard about the fire from friends and saw pictures of it on Facebook while she was at the library. She said a bombardment of texts and calls asking if she was OK made her panic.
"What if it was my apartment?" she said. "What if I'd accidentally left my straighter on or something stupid like that and it was my fault?"
Heintzelman, Antonik and every resident at Berkeley Flats are required by their lease agreements to have renter's insurance. Antonik said she pays $12 a month for $5,000 worth of coverage.
Blotcher said she's seen students without renter's insurance drop out of school because the financial burden was too much. She said all student renters should consider insurance because it's affordable, with a generous plan costing between $15 to $17 dollars a month.
She felt the insurance plans allowed the students affected by the fire to be optimistic.
"They had a light at the end of the tunnel most people don't have"
POLITICS
— Edited by Joanna Hlavacek
Santos to speak at Dole Institute
LALLISON KOHN
akohn@kansan.com
Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, will receive the Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences today at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics. The award is the highest recognition the college gives.
According to a University news release, Santos graduated from KU in 1973. Since his time in Lawrence, Santos has served in various
Santos
Colombian governmental positions, including finance minister and national defense minister. In 2005, he founded the Partido de la Uj
Colombias largest political party. Santos won the presidential election on Aug. 7, 2010, obtaining 9 million votes, the highest any candidate has received in Colombian democracy history. He will serve
Colombia's largest political party.
his term until 2014.
The award ceremony will begin at 2:30 p.m., and is free and open to the public. Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little will present the award after Santos speaks and answers audience questions.
Santos will also be interviewed by Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute of Politics. KU News will live stream the conversation. Go to http://news.ku.edu/live/ to watch.
Edited by Nikki Wentling
Police and U.S. Secret Service agents provide extra security on Sunday night for a guest at the Oread Hotel. Police would neither confirm nor deny that the guest is Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia.
CLAIRE HOWARD/KANSAN
CLASSIFIEDS 11
CROSSWORD 5
CRYPTOQUIPS 5
OPINICN 4
SPORTS 12
SUBOKU 5
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian president and KU alum, will speak at the Dole Institute at 2:30 p.m.
Today's Weather
Warme; and mostly
cloudy, 20 percent chance
of thunderstorms late.
Southeast wind at 8 mph.
HI: 81
L0: 60
2