An attempted burglary occurred at a university-owned house on New Road today, sometime between 10:30 a.m. and 1:20 p.m., according to Public Safety Sergeant Bob Vignola.

A female resident and Quinnipiac student returned home from class to find that the side door of her house had been kicked in.  

[media-credit name=”Photo courtesy of quoted resident” align=”alignright” width=”375″][/media-credit]The resident who found the opened door was unable to comment, however, her housemate was able to describe the events.

“My housemate got home and noticed that the door was kicked in and so she quickly called her parents and her mom told her to leave the house and then she picked me up,” she said. “We then realized that not only was our side door kicked in but my door, her door and then our guest bedroom door were all kicked in. We went to Public Safety and they called [Hamden Police].”

The resident said nothing appeared to be missing from the house, even though only one bedroom door was locked.

Vignola explained that since no property loss has been confirmed at this time the incident is technically considered criminal mischief, however because a door was kicked open he is calling it an attempted burglary.

“A burglary by Connecticut statute is when you enter a premise to commit a crime so basically it’s a burglary, but it’s an attempted burglary at this point,” he said.

Hamden Police Detective Joseph Liguori confirmed that there is an ongoing investigation and a notice will be sent to students, but does not think students have cause to be alarmed.

The resident said she never feared for her safety in her New Road house, and is surprised that this happened so close to campus.

“I was in complete and utter shock,” she said. “I never thought that something like that would happen, especially in such a college area surrounded by other college houses.”

The students have requested to be moved to a different residence area.

“I am not staying in that house,” she said. “Living in this house knowing that someone did that, especially knowing where it was, we were afraid something could happen again if they did come back.”

The resident, a junior at Quinnipiac living in the off-campus housing due to an accommodation, is surprised at the lack of surveillance on New Road.

“I’m shocked that there are no security cameras down New Road that Public Safety can watch just because it is such a residential neighborhood with all these college kids,” she said. “They have no idea, like nothing [about the incident].”

While New Road lacks video surveillance, Public Safety does patrol the area and will increase its watch as needed.

“We’re going to saturate the area, that’s natural anyway,” Vignola said. “We’re following up on a couple of leads but the area is heavily traveled, so there’s not a lot of criminal action down there. We’re picking up our patrol checks as needed.”  

Public Safety also told the residents of the house that a maintenance worker reportedly saw a suspicious car parked in their driveway as he drove by, but did not choose to investigate, according to the resident. Public Safety declined to confirm this to The Chronicle due to the case remaining open and ongoing.

Although the resident does not wish to remain in her current residence area, she was pleased with the support and attention that Hamden Police, Public Safety and her Residence Hall Director showed her and her housemate.

“Hamden PD took really good care of us and they were really nice and kind and understanding about it,” she said. “They really were here to talk to us and help us out as soon as possible, along with Res Life. The amount of people that did get involved so quickly was really nice to see, but I still don’t feel like this is the safest place living in this house.”

One neighboring female student was in her house on New Road when Hamden Police knocked on her door.

“It was like 2:15 [p.m.] and a police officer came to the door and he just asked if I had seen anything weird,” the student said. “[He told me] there had been a burglary nearby and there were a couple cars parked outside a house just a couple doors down from us. He asked if our house had any cameras, and I had only been home for less than an hour, so he only asked about the last hour if I had seen any weird cars parked outside, but I hadn’t noticed anything.”

Hamden Police did not give any further information to the neighboring student, neglecting to reveal that the house in question was university-owned.

The Chronicle reached out to one New Road resident assistant. She said she was unaware of the situation.

Stay with The Chronicle for further updates as they become available.