A burglary took place at the Delta Delta Delta sorority house Sunday between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., according to Charlottesville Police.
Detective Lisa Reeves said it appeared that a male burglar entered through one of the house doors and was able to steal a student’s laptop. Students were present in the house at the time of the robbery, but the intruder had no contact with them except for one resident whom he saw before fleeing from the house.
Sally Kline Armentrout, assistant dean of Fraternity and Sorority Life, said the most recent break-in to a sorority house was last December. She added that in both occurrences, nobody was injured.
Delta Delta Delta member Jenna Llewellyn, whose laptop was stolen Sunday, explained that the tough part about preventing burglaries is that male students are often allowed into the house and therefore, anyone seen in the house is usually assumed to be a friend. This, Llewellyn said, is what the resident who spotted the burglar assumed. Because of this reaction, the house residents did not call the police until they realized the laptop was missing.
The sorority’s National House Corporation responded to the burglary within six hours of the report by changing the locks and codes needed to get into the house, trimming the hedges to keep people from hiding in them and asking a police officer come to teach house residents how to be safer, said Katherine Ali Konstant, president of the University’s chapter of Delta Delta Delta. The sorority also created a program in response to the burglary that puts a different resident in charge of making sure all of the windows and doors are locked each night, Llewellyn said. She added that the residents have also begun bolting the doors to their rooms at night before they go to sleep.
Future safety projects the sorority is working on include putting a fence up in the backyard so strangers cannot walk through and increasing lighting, Llewellyn added.
“The creepiest part is that [the burglar] had the audacity to take things while people were in the house,” Llewellyn said. She noted that “everybody thinks it will never happen to them,” emphasizing that students often do not take the proper precautions because of this mentality.
Llewellyn said she hopes other sororities will make an example of the burglary and will work on their safety measures as well.
Armentrout said the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life has been working on increasing security within the Greek community since the summer. Floodlights have been installed around sorority houses to keep them well-lit at night, and have held meetings involving community officials to inform sorority and fraternity chapter presidents about how to improve safety measures.
Reeves warned that students should lock their doors and windows and keep valuables secure. She also asked that if anyone in the community saw anything in the area around the Delta Delta Delta house around the time of the burglary, Charlottesville Police request that they call Crime Stoppers at 434-977-4000.
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