Spate of Robberies Extends to Quincy

For a few Quincy House residents, their suite offered small comfort from the rain this weekend as they awoke Saturday to the sound of a male intruder robbing their room. The thief was stealing what amounted to be the third laptop that was snatched from Quincy students in the past week.

One victim of the theft, Olivia A. Benowitz ’09, described waking up to find a man going through her purse. The culprit offered her a story about how he was a neighbor who was looking for a quarter so that he could call the American Automobile Association.

“It was just so scary,” Benowitz said. “I can’t tell you how frightening it is to be a woman and tiny and to wake up and there is a strange, large man in your room. You don’t know what he’s going to do.”

The incident follows another robbery in the 20 DeWolfe Street building earlier this week. In that theft, an intruder broke in through a window, taking two laptops and two wallets.

Multiple muggings and robberies have also been reported throughout the Harvard Square area in a month that, at least anecdotally, has seen a high rate of criminal activity.

A Harvard University Police Department alert issued yesterday provided descriptions of both crimes and of the second intruder. Information about the first crime was not distributed—to Quincy residents or to the wider community—until five days after it occurred.

The alert also warned residents to close their windows when leaving their rooms and not to hold doors open for strangers, a message emphasized over e-mail by Resident Dean Judith F. Chapman and House Master Lee Gehrke.

Both strongly discouraged the act known as “piggybacking,” or letting an unfamiliar individual follow a student inside a building that requires card access.

But the notice comes too late for Benowitz, who said she would have wanted to know of the DeWolfe robbery sooner.

“I’m shocked that we didn’t hear about the first robbery,” she said.

The victims of the DeWolfe robbery did not see their intruder, and thus could not offer a description.

Benowitz said that she hoped descriptions of perpetrators would be sent out as soon as possible after crimes occur, so that students would not open doors for robbers to repeat their crimes.

“You should be able to feel safe,” Benowitz said.

Chapman and Gehrke said they were concerned for the safety of students.

“Two intrusions and three laptops stolen in one week is really alarming,” Chapman said.

Gehrke described new security features added to Quincy House over the summer, such as the new ID cards and card readers, as well as new firedoor alarms.

“Our staff will be meeting to review security in the House,” Gehrke said.

—Staff writer Alexander R. Konrad can be reached at akonrad@fas.harvard.edu.