Quinnipiac University’s Department of Public Safety was unable to locate two unidentified trespassers who repeatedly entered and exited the Mount Carmel Campus over a span of approximately 90 minutes Thursday afternoon.
Two men representing the New Haven, Connecticut, branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints parked off-campus and accessed Quinnipiac’s quad on foot around 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
A Public Safety dispatcher was made aware of the trespassers at 1:59 p.m., though no officers ever approached the men.
A sergeant from the department confirmed just after 5 p.m. Thursday that officers had been unable to locate the men and were still attempting to determine how they accessed the Mount Carmel Campus.
“It definitely should be a wake-up call,” said Lizzy Carpenter, a junior media studies major with whom the men spoke for several minutes. “I feel like if that’s a call they’re getting, that should be top priority.”
The trespassers stopped dozens of passing students on the quad to promote the Mormon faith.
“Do you want to come to church on Sunday?” the men asked several students.
The two men briefly exited the Mount Carmel Campus behind the Center for Communications and Computing and Engineering around 2:30 p.m., though they almost immediately reentered the campus via the New Road entrance.
After sitting outside CCE for nearly 30 minutes, the unidentified individuals exited the campus for a second and final time just before 3 p.m., returning to an SUV parked across the street from Quinnipiac’s facilities entrance.
The men then left the area in a silver Nissan Rogue with Massachusetts license plates at 3:09 p.m. — more than an hour-and-a-half after first entering the Mount Carmel Campus and 70 minutes after Public Safety first became aware of them.
Thursday’s trespassing incident came just 15 days after an unidentified man claiming to represent a nonexistent university organization solicited students and faculty in CCE for approximately four hours. Quinnipiac and Hamden officials were ultimately unable to locate the trespasser.
“This is the second incident in the last, what, two weeks?” Carpenter said. “How can they get in so easily?”
Chief of Public Safety Tony Reyes declined to comment.
